The spread of media with the advent of social media platforms has grown multifold in recent years where the rat race between the electronic media channels sometimes turn ugly devastating many lives.
Dhamaka, based on the Korean film The Terror Live streaming now on the leading digital platform Netflix was an attempt in that direction to expose the chinks in the media and to bare their fallacies along with unravelling bitter truth about our political system.
Synopsis
A unanimous call to Arjun Pathak (Kartik Aaryan), a Radio Jockey while he was on the air turns his life upside down. This call which comes at a time when the relationship with his wife Soumya Pathak (Mrunal Thakur) was at crossroads makes his life more miserable.
As a blessing in disguise, the caller Raghubeer Mhata (Soham Majumdar) brings back Arjun Pathak on to his popular TV show with the blast orchestrated by Raghubeer on Bandra-Worli Sea Link creating the ripples in the media circles.
The demand from Raghubeer was simple and manageable, the concerned Minister has to apologize for the incident which happened during the construction of Sea Link which claimed three innocent lives.
Arjun Pathak finds himself in a vulnerable position as he has to convince Raghubeer on one hand and the TV Channel Management on the other while dealing with the Government. How did he handle this mess and what happened to Soumya who was reporting from the blast site was the remaining story of Dhamaka.
Performances
It was the one-man show of Kartik Aaryan who has shown a lot of maturity and conviction in playing the character of Arjun Pathak. The charm of this character lies in its genuineness as the viewer doesn’t feel like watching him in a film but it feels like watching a real live show in front of the eyes. That was possible by the towering performance of Kartik Aaryan which reached new peaks and he is going to collect many accolades for this performance.
Mrunal Thakur appears for a brief moment looked lively while Amruta Subhash, and Vikas Kumar along with all other actors have done well as required by the script.
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Behind the scenes
Ram Madhvani and Puneet Sharma have weaved a taut screenplay derived from the Korean story by giving it the required nativity touch. The deft execution of a complicated script by Ram Madhvani was pretty much evident and was highly successful in exposing the darker corners of the TV channels and the incompetency of the system to handle the exigencies.
Branding everyone who speaks or comments against the Government as a terrorist was highlighted admirably and the dialogues penned by Puneet and Madhvani were not only spot on but thought-provoking too at the same time.
The background score and composition of songs by the music director Vikas Khurana were top-notch. The song ‘Khoya Paaya’ sung by Amit Trivedi and Delraaz Bunshah stands at the top among all other songs.
The cinematography by Manu Anand and the VFX teams also have done a splendid job in creating the blast effects which looked quite real and perfect on the screen.
Final Verdict
Dhamaka lives up to its title which was nothing short of a resounding thriller that exposed the media and political system without any frills. A perfect screenplay and excellent performance by Kartik Aaryan were the highlights of the film which deserves a compulsory watch.