Dora Tamil Movie
'Dora', as most of us would recollect is a household name, thanks to the popular cartoon character that is shown taking a journey on its own, meeting various people and doing different things all alone.
How well the title augurs for an actress like Nayanthara is something that I mulled over while watching the movie. Her ability to pull masses and command an opening and her well-curated charisma with carefully hand-picked roles is something that only a few heroines have attained in the past. Dora is another solo experiment by Nayanthara and is slotted in the very popular horror genre.
The story is about a ghost car that Pavalakodi (Nayanthara) and her father (Thambi Ramaiah) get to own and are initially haunted with its misdemeanour. Parallely a north Indian trio are shown committing various crimes and the cops are trying to nab them. The connection between the haunted car, the criminal trio and Pavalakodi gets revealed in the latter half with an eventual backstory and the car takes revenge on the criminals with the help of Pavalakodi.
Somehow, a solo heroine movie lacks the sort of fizz when she doesn't romance or doesn't encounter a male chauvinist as her opponent. There is no drama, only a wee bit of melodrama that showcases a minor as a rape victim, but that was brutal enough for the film to earn an adult certificate.
Thambi Ramaiah had a standard role as that of a joker father, running around and getting scared of the ghost's antics. Also, Vadivelu's famous 'Chandramukhi' scare show is revisited, and that shows how badly we miss him and how dried out our sense of humour has become.
Harish Uthaman as the hot-headed cop is another stereotype. For a second I thought he might be paired-up with Nayanthara, then he is shown the way out by Nayanthara herself after he rejects her. Then we get that inevitable line from Thambi Ramaiah, 'Unna mathiri South India la yaaru?' - who else is there like you in South India? At that point it struck me, this is a wannabe 'mass heroine' film - a yesteryear genre made famous with the likes of Vijayasanthi has been dug up from the grave.
There is this solo shot of Nayanthara walking with style and then some acting prowess showcase of her changing moods every now and then like an Ambi in Anniyan felt rhetoric - like I mentioned, a wannabe mass-heroine movie.
There was a brilliant scene where she traces her abducted father with the help of the haunted car. That was the scene where the fictitious logic stood tall and handsome. A few more places had those sort of glimpses and were much entertaining than the comic portions that appeared staged and pale.
Cinematography by Dinesh Krishnan was splendid. Though this movie had limited scope for him, he has lit the scenes brilliantly with warm and vibrant colours and was pleasing for the eyes. Music by Vivek Siva and Solomon was also refreshing. The BGM is praiseworthy. Gopi Krishna's editing ensured to sustain the mood for the scenes and was too good at some places.
Debutant director Das Ramsamy has come up with a horror plot that has some novelty and a star performer, but lacks fizz mainly due to the pale staging of scenes and stale delivery of dialogues along with cliched scares that hamper it from becoming a true-blue horror entertainer!
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