A genre-breaching inter-species love story, Munjya and Zombivli director Aditya Sarpotdar's Thamma harks back to a character or two that are integral to the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe (MHCU) while it marks out the way forward for the evolving franchise with a pair of new all-powerful figures who now have their tasks cut out.
Does Thamma have enough crackle to be a fitting Diwali release? For the most part, yes. Rooted in all-encompassing folklore, it mashes up a medley of fantasy conventions and rustles up a tale in which the boundaries of credulity are constantly tested but in a fun sort of way.
Thamma, scripted by Munjya writer Niren Bhatt in collaboration with Suresh Mathew and Arun Fulara, blends a steadily solemn streak with a sustained spirt of playfulness. It moves from one to the other through malleable means that merge well with the film's tone and tenor.
The coming together of two conflicting creative impulses livens up the fantasy as it incorporates components from multiple genres and hurtles along at a pace that leaves little room for contemplation on what is believable and what isn't.
Much of the film plays out in a commune of forest-dwelling vampires that is fighting an evil renegade in a collective attempt to strike a balance between their phantom domain where blood-sucking has been barred and the world of living, breathing humans who have no clue that there is a whole universe out there beyond their comprehension.
On one hand, Thamma alludes to the Partition riots as a MacGuffin that lends a tangential but key strand to the plot. On the other, it physically brings in Bhediya (Varun Dhawan) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee, in a cameo reprising his role in Stree and Bhediya) to embrace and expand the world it is creating.
It also evokes Wolverine and Dracula – one of the principal characters is dismissed as a cheap knock-off from Vikaspuri and Sarojini Nagar – and a lot else between the two Hollywood creatures that have never ceased to be household names in India and elsewhere in the world.
Thamma opens with a sequence set in 323 BC. Alexander, riding through a dense forest, is warned that the region is infested with blood-sucking vampires. The conqueror thunders that the whole wide world fears him. Why would he be afraid of some betaal lurking in the foliage? His arrogance proves foolhardy.
Cut to the present. A bumbling television journalist, Alok Goyal (Ayushmann Khurrana), is attacked by a bear during a jungle trek with a couple of colleagues. The friends take to their heels. As Alok stares at certain death, a vampire, Taraka (Rashmika Mandanna), surfaces from nowhere, falls in love at first sniff, and rescues him.
But Alok's troubles are far from over. Three burly vampires venture forth to capture him and serve him up to their ‘thamma', their lord and master Yakshasan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), for lunch. Yakshasan, in chains for a century, thirsts for human blood. Taraka intervenes one more time and the dude in distress eludes death again.
“Woh toh stree hain, who kuch bhi kar sakti hai, somebody asserts later in the film, linking Thamma to the first MHCU entry. The cross-references become more persistent as the two-and-a-half-hour film races towards its climax.
What Thamma gets right is the finale. It is strikingly compact and impactful. Parts of it may demand a willing suspension of rational thought, but the climax isn't stretched out in the way that the final acts of Bollywood horror comedies usually are.
After being saved twice, Alok talks his comely protector into following him into his world where his mother (Geeta Agrawal Sharma) takes an instant liking to the girl. His father (Paresh Rawal), however, views Taraka, rechristened Tarika for the benefit of humans, with suspicion.
One thing leads to another and the differences between Alok and Taraka dissolve, leading to even greater chaos and confusion for the male protagonist and his befuddled dad who believes his son has fallen into a trap.
Questions begin to fly thick and fast as worlds collide inside and outside the Goyal household. After he jumps from one high-rise terrace to another, a character asks: Kya tha yeh (What was that)? A protracted duel with a beast ends with another question: “Kaun hai yeh (Who is this)?
One query assumes the form of a mid-1970s Hindi movie song – Keh doon tumhen ya chup rahoon dil mein mere aaj kya hai? Somewhere along the way, the late 1970s horror potboiler Jaani Dushman receives an inevitable mention.
Mercifully, all the conundrums that swirl around Taraka and Alok's blossoming relationship across life and death aren't as confounding as they usually tend to be in Bollywood ‘horror' movies. In fact, Thamma is not a horror film nor is it an outright comedy.
By locating itself in a zone that lies somewhere between Stree and Munjya, it rustles up a spectrum that has enough novelty to pass muster as an entertainer. It moves fairly smoothly between the zany and the other-worldly while keeping its feet firmly planted in spaces that are both tangible and tongue-in-cheek.
In one sequence, the shelves of a nether-world watering hole have bottles of blood matured over centuries. The hero partakes of a few samples as an item number is performed behind him by Nora Fatehi. Fatehi isn't the only one who gets to sway to a song thrown in relief. There is Malaika Arora, too. She does her own number without slowing down the film.
The lead pair never loses grip over roles that require their prosthetic Dracula teeth to do as much of the talking as their eyes – talking of eyes, Rashmika Mandanna, not surprisingly, wins hands down – and mouths. They do a fine job of flitting back and forth between bewilderment and omniscience.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui brings an exceptional level of flash and flair to bear upon the titular role. It is a brilliantly modulated performance even when it appears to border on the excessive. That, to a certain extent, is true of the film as a whole. It teeters on the edge at times but never topples over.
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Ayushmann Khurrana, Rashmika Mandanna, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Paresh Rawal
