Dhilluku Dhuddu (2016)

There are some films that manage to get away despite seeming underwhelming solely riding on the fact that the post-interval portions are entertaining enough to make you forget the dreariness of the initial scenes. Dhilluku Dhuddu is that kind of film. The director, Rambhala takes too long a time to get his plot moving. He gives a prologue that wouldn't be out of place in a typical horror film, and then cuts to Kumar (Santhanam), a happy-go-lucky middle-class guy. We are made to sit through one of the insipid romantic tracks in recent times. This is made worse by the fact that the heroine seems so out of place while the hero is so tentative in these scenes.

It doesn't help that the track is cliched to the core. You see Kumar's lover Kajal (Shanaya) is the daughter of a loan shark (Saurabh Shukla, in a just-for-paycheck role), who just cannot accept this match. So, with the help of a gun-for-hire (Rajendran), he decides to murder Kumar by inviting his entire family to a mansion in a remote hilltop. But what no one realises is that the place is haunted by a powerful ghost. Meanwhile, Kumar believes the ghosts are a mere set-up, thus leading to hilarious situations.

The horror scenes convey a promise of scaring us, but Rambhala doesn't reach for a serious tone, probably worrying that the audience who had come in just for the laughs might get turned off. Luckily, Deepak Kumar Padhy's cinematography lends some creepiness to these scenes.

It is particularly in the portions where there is a mix-up between real and the make-believe ghosts that Dhilluku Dhuddu resembles the kind of film that its trailers portray it as. There is not much spoof of horror movie cliches as you might expect, but the jokes hit their mark, though we keep wishing they were funnier (especially because this is from the men behind Lollu Sabha). While Karunas and Anandraj, who gets to sport a Hulk Hogan-like look in the earlier scenes, provide able support, Santhanam, who is gaining in confidence with every film as a hero, does his comic shtick of insult and simile-based comedy. But these scenes actually ride mostly on the reception that Rajendran gets in theatres these days, and the actor is, once again, in sparkling form. He does everything to get the laughs, from kissing a henchman on the mouth to even balancing a burning candle on his bald head! Sometimes, all it takes is such silliness to leave people with a sense of being entertained.