DAGAALTY

Dagaalty @ Dackalty (as per censor) is a comedy-action drama written and directed by Vijay Anand. It has Santhanam and Rittika Sen in the lead roles, while Yogi Babu, Radha Ravi, and others play crucial supporting roles. The film is bankrolled by SP Chowdhary and Santhanam under their banners 18 Reels and Handmade Films. It has cinematography by Deepak Kumar Pathy and music by Vijay Narain.

Vijay Anand's Dackalty is one of those films that aspires to be a part of the Santhanam Universe, where the story is simple, logic is non-existent and there are truckloads of humorous punchlines. At the same time, it also wants to be one of those action films where stunts take the forefront, making you forget everything else.

The main problem with Dackalty is that it constantly switches between both these genres, without doing justice to both. There are a lot of comedic punches, courtesy Yogi Babu and Santhanam, but the ratio of the ones that land to the ones that don't is very low. There are innovative action sequences at the start, but they too run out of steam as the film progresses.

Santhanam is trying to make a mark as a mass hero, and the effort translates well on screen. But what's the point when it's a one man show up front? He plays the role of Guru, a drug smuggler, or at least that's what it seems like. There is only one scene where he attempts to smuggle drugs, but gets caught by the police. When that's the only case presented to us, we don't really get to know whether he's a professional or an amateur.

Rittika Sen plays Malli, a conservative woman from Tiruchendur who aspires to be a film director. Her range of expressions are limited, and it's hard to understand a lot of things that she does. None of the characters, including the lead actors' are written properly. When that is missing, it's hard to connect emotionally with the film. Among the supporting actors, Yogi Babu is exceptional. He's incredible especially in the last 15 minutes and his timing is impeccable.

The film opens with Samrat, a multimillionaire, sketching a woman, and asking his assistants to find a woman with that exact face. This would have made sense, if he had seen that face before at least once. It's understood that cinematic liberties can be taken, but this is a scene that lays foundation to what's going to happen in the next two hours on screen. When the foundation stone is shaky, the building is also going to be weak.

The screenplay turns to be less engaging and weak, with the songs not helping the film's cause. On the technical side, the visuals are inconsistent and the music blends with the narrative at a few places. Technically too, the film doesn't stand out much.

With so many elements not helping the film, the only redeeming factor is the chemistry between Santhanam and Yogi Babu. Barring that there's nothing much offered to us. Dackalty had the potential to become a highly entertaining comedy film, but might disappointment fans.