Dheeram Movie Review & Rating: Consider this hypothetical scenario: “How much music do you need?” asked Manikandan. “Yes,” Jithin replied. Baffled, the former sought clarification, “No, no… What I meant to ask was which scenes should I add music to?” The response was again, “Yes.” Now, he understood the assignment. “Roger that!” Even if someone affirmed that this was precisely the conversation between director Jithin Suresh T and composer Manikandan Ayyappa during their meeting for Dheeram, I wouldn’t be the least surprised.
In all honesty, no other recent Malayalam movie has annoyed me as much as Dheeram did. Not even the disgusting Officer On Duty. A poorly made film can be dubbed “bad,” and one can move on. But Dheeram hits one’s raw nerve. Not just that about 95 per cent of scenes — I am likely being lenient here; the figure could easily be 99 per cent; yet I’m scaling it down a bit, just in case there were any instances that I overlooked — have background music, but the tracks are so loud that they consistently pull our focus away from the movie.
While most films follow a pattern in which the BGM aligns with the scene’s tone and is placed in such a way that it matches the editing or visual pacing, Dheeram’s music runs alongside the movie without regard for what’s transpiring on-screen, stubbornly refusing to synchronise with the visuals. Even when a scene changes and the subsequent one doesn’t share the same mood, Manikandan bluntly continues playing the ongoing track, almost appearing adamant that he won’t cut it short and will only stop once the entire thing has played out.
The result is a movie that gives one nothing but a headache. Worse still, director Jithin has just let it be. From start to finish, all I could think was: did literally no one watch the final cut of the movie before approving it for release? Not even editor Nagooran Ramachandran, Jithin, or even Manikandan himself? While the director has the creative freedom to decide whether a scene should feature silence, ambient sound, or music, Dheeram stands as a testament to the cost a film must pay for misjudgments while making such choices.
Watch Dheeram trailer here:
It’s just another Friday in Indian cinema, and a new serial killer is on the loose. Much to no one’s surprise, this killer also has a flashback that’s connected to the rape of a woman. At this point, I feel that most male filmmakers don’t even try racking their brains to come up with something new other than violence against women or children when making thrillers. The bar is so low that if they “kindly” reduce the graphic portrayal of sex crimes, we may have to extol them for their “altruism.” But Dheeram doesn’t want our praise like that. In fact, it takes the opposite route and tries to leave the viewers traumatised by showing the visuals of the same gruesome gang rape multiple times — both as a video recording of the crime that the police have found and then in a detailed flashback scene. But why? That’s for the film’s makers to explain.
Following the murder of two rich, spoiled young men, ACP Stalin Joseph (Indrajith Sukumaran), who is investigating the case, concludes that this might be the action of a serial killer and that the latter might have some past enmity towards the two. With evidence collected from the crime scenes, he deduces that the crimes will continue and that more people will be killed. During the investigation, Stalin and his team learn that these two men studied at the same school and that they and their friends were notorious even back then. As the journey progresses, Stalin unravels some extremely dark chapters of their past. Yet, he is unable to find out who the person targeting these young men is.
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While the movie opens on a suspenseful note, it doesn’t take long for Dheeram’s shortcomings to become evident. Although writers Deepu S Nair and Sandeep Sadanandan have attempted to build the world by taking their time, the lack of intriguing elements in the narrative renders their efforts futile. For much of the screen time, we simply follow Stalin and his team members, SI Divya (Divya Pillai) and Jose (Nishanth Sagar), as they struggle to advance in their investigation and are forced to stand as mute spectators while the serial killer continues the murder spree. However, all this unfolds in a dull manner that fails to pique the audience’s interest. The lack of depth in key characters, particularly Stalin, who occupies most of the scenes, also prevents Dheeram from offering an immersive experience. The extremely poor dialogues only exacerbates the situation.
And wherever the writers felt ill-equipped to come up with something clever to tie up loose ends, they have made Stalin Joseph walk in and activate his sixth sense, which gives him a panoramic view of exactly what has happened in the space he has entered — be it a parking lot or a locked house. No, don’t get me wrong; he doesn’t have any superpowers. It’s a skill, I guess. Put simply, the writers just couldn’t think of anything else; that’s all. One could argue that Jeethu Joseph’s Prithviraj Sukumaran-starrer Memories (2013) also used this visual device, and no one pooh-poohed that. But in Memories, Sam Alex (Prithviraj) was shown simply connecting the dots using visible evidence, rather than creating visuals from thin air in his head, like how Stalin does one time when he walks into a hostel room where a boy lived years ago.
Dheeram stars Indrajith Sukumaran, Divya Pillai, and Reba Monica John in key roles. (Credit: Facebook/@IndrajithSukumaran)
As the film progresses, new characters are introduced, who get flashbacks that eventually merge with the core plot, or the already established people are given a twist. But none of this makes the movie more interesting, particularly since the twists appear forced and contrived. (Spoilers ahead) For instance, since Reba Monica John and Sagar Surya are well-known actors, the lack of focus on their roles from the beginning gives the feeling that they’re being deliberately underplayed. Consequently, when their characters are finally offered proper arcs tied to the core plot, they fail to make the intended impact. Dheeram is marred by such poor creative choices.
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After a point, since the narrative is so hollow, Jithin resorts to showing extremely graphic depictions of various forms of torture, including the previously mentioned gang rape, in an attempt to grab the attention of at least some viewers by offering sadistic arousal. What makes it abundantly clear that the movie doesn’t have its heart in the right place is that the character of the rape survivor’s father is played by actor Sreejith Ravi, who was previously arrested in real life for allegedly flashing schoolgirls and subsequently booked under the POCSO Act. This isn’t irony; it just reflects the makers’ lack of ethics.
As Dheeram reaches its final leg, there are several instances when we feel the film is finally over and that what we are watching is the climactic reveal. However, the “twists” and the movie never end, making one wonder if they have become ensnared in a maze from which escape is impossible. From one red herring or misdirection to another, and from one twist to the next, Dheeram keeps moving forward. And then, it ends in the least impactful way. The end.
Anyway, let me conclude by saying that we audiences may have been too harsh on Christy Savio (Vishak Nair) and his drug addict gang from Officer on Duty for being too caricatured. I mean, compared to the psycho gang in Dheeram, they at least offered some laughs by being cartoonish. Here, everything is just vexing.
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Dheeram movie cast: Indrajith Sukumaran, Divya Pillai, Reba Monica John, Renji Panicker, Nishanth Sagar, Aju Varghese, Sagar Surya, Avanthika Mohan
Dheeram movie director: Jithin Suresh T
Dheeram movie rating: 1 star
