Dhamaka: Let Down By A Predictable Narrative
By our team of in-house writers.
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First publised on 2021-11-23 01:18:10
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By our team of in-house writers.
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Dhamaka (streaming on Netflix) reminds one of the A Wednesday but is not a patch on that excellent film about an ordinary and wronged citizen taking on the might of the system. In Dhamaka (based on The Terror Live) too, a person who has grievances against the system tries to get compensation for dead fellow workers and an apology from a minister by threatening to blow up the Sea Link in Mumbai.
When he first calls a radio jockey Arjun Pathak (Karthik Aryan) during a live show and issues his threat, he is not taken seriously but he immediately provides proof and detonates the first device. What happens after that is a serious critique of how television channels work and how news anchors use information to further their careers instead of thinking about the nation and the security implication.
Pathak, who was a famous television anchor but has been demoted due to a slip in the past and is battling relationship ghosts (an estranged wife and marriage on the rocks), thinks that this is the moment to be famous once more and get his prime time slot back. He negotiates with his immediate boss. She in turn prods him to keep the drama going by instigating the so-called terrorist and keeping the conversation running to gain TRP.
But the action, though filmed well, gets repetitive in the middle. The machinations of the channel head and the conflict in Pathak's mind are well brought out. There are bombs all over the place, including in the ear piece of Pathak, another anchor and whoever comes on the show and no explanation is given how a lone ranger could do all this. In the end, when Arjun discovers who the 'terrorist' is, it is too late as by that time the channel has completed his character assassination and he is labeled a co-conspirator who is helping the 'terrorist'.
But some far-fetched situations and the flaws, Dhamaka raises important questions about workers and their well-being, the role being played by the television media in giving a slant to stories and using anchors to further their ends and the pangs of conscience one encounters when asked to do something one does not want to do. But a predictable narrative punctures what could have been a taut thriller. But Karthik Aryan does well to bring out all shades of his character, including looking completely flabbergasted when nothing remains relevant in his life after his estranged wife is killed in the blast and he himself is declared an enemy of the nation.
