Dhamaka is loosely based on the 2013 Korean movie ‘The Terror Live’. It is a film made shot in a single location, a format which has been used in several movies and helped in delivering so many great movies, be it Buried directed by Rodrigo Cortés, starring Ryan Reynold’s or M Night Shyamalan’s Devil, the legendary 12 Angry Men or recently released Jake Gyllenhaal starring The Guilty. All these movies are great, thrilling, and kept us glued to our seats. These movies depend heavily on the performance of the lead actor. Like in ‘A Wednesday’ we had two amazing actors Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher, their performances were so amazing that we couldn’t miss a scene in the movie which was a total amiss in Dhamaka
Dhamaka stars Kartik Aryan, and he is playing the character of a news anchor called Arjun Pathak. It was hard to be convinced as an audience that someone like Kartik Aryan in the serious role of a star news anchor of a prime-time news show with years of experience. The role did not fit him considering the characters he has played so far in the movies like ‘Pyar Ka Punchnama’ and a similar character in ‘Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety’.
In Dhamaka, Arjun Pathak, who is demoted to the position of a radio jockey gets a call from Raghubeer Mata one day. Raghubeer claims that he has bombs planted at Sea-Link, Mumbai. Arjun thinks it is a prank and Raghubeer proves him wrong by triggering a bomb. Arjun realizes that it is a real terrorist attack, he is scared. But he sees in it an opportunity as well, and then the whole media circus starts. It shows the workspace politics, the shenanigans, the corruption, toxic work culture, and scandalous two-faced nature of the so-called media houses.
Director R. Madhvani has done a decent job. Except for Kartik Aryan, he was able to bring out the best from all the actors. Madhvani had proved his mantle in 2016 with his movie Neerja and everyone praised the performance of Sonam Kapoor who was till then not known for such serious roles. In Dhamaka, Amruta Subhash is the one who is the reason you should watch the movie, her performance is brilliant and she fits the character of a ruthless greedy boss perfectly. Amruta Subhash is the best actor in this movie.
The film starts good, the first half of the film is actually kind of gripping but after a while, it loses momentum. However, it kind of catches up in the end. The film is a decent watch, nothing extraordinary. If they had taken someone else as the lead, maybe the film would have been far better. It is a 6/10 stars movie at max.