DNA Review - A Fairly Engaging Crime Thriller!
Ashwin Ram
DNA is a crime thriller starring Atharvaa and Nimisha Sajayan in the lead roles. The film is directed by Nelson Venkatesan of Monster fame.
Premise: Atharvaa is a drunkard who is going through a hard breakup phase and Nimisha Sajayan has brain conditions. They both get married and unfortunately their newborn baby gets interchanged at the hospital. They suspect foul play and the search begins.
Writing/ Direction: An intense baby-lifting plot that has some intense and commercially viable stretches, watered down in totality mainly due to the deviations in the screenplay. The initial happenings could have been removed completely, as doing so would make no difference, the entire junk is not that efficient to the core story. It is evident that the director is dying to move on and get into the subject as the portions in the first hour feel so rushed. The staging is overly cinematic and does not help in world building as well. The engagement improves close to the one hour mark, although even after that we don’t get to witness any remarkable writing, at least the movie never bores after that till the very end. Many convenient situations of the hero finding the crime network so effortlessly, it is the theme of babies who are being kidnapped for scary reasons that saves the film. Once the movie goes past the crucial hospital scene, there is no stopping and constantly something or the other keeps happening to hold the audience. Predictable money-minded villains and they don’t have much scope too as it is a dark network. The final act is very promising, the moving scene at the colony with the two mothers making way for an emotional moment. The pre-climax temple sequence is solid, the desperation of the couple to get their baby back transforms to the audience and so the particular portion is sure to click theatrically.
Performances: One of the better roles and performances from Atharvaa in recent times. He is sharp and focused as a father figure of a newborn, his skills help big time with stunts. Neat act by Nimisha Sajayan as an over enthusiastic girl, nothing fascinating in terms of development, yet the mother emotion works quite a bit towards the end. Director Balaji Sakthivel as a Police constable gets full-fledged screen space, a good one from him and his role does help the story to move forward at many instances. There are plenty of other supporting characters written in an half-baked manner, despite them performing well and being intact with the story, they don’t provide the impact.
Technicalities: Out of the album, the hero introduction track at the very beginning and an irrelevant item number out of nowhere are completely useless for the flow. The other montage songs that are used for the narrative are not memorable enough. Fine pieces of scores from Ghibran that significantly betters the mood of the situations. No big complaints with the visual quality and camera angles, but many colour jumps and saturation issues exist. Editing is a mixed bag, its probably fine after the film gets into the core theme, but there are many random scenes that have nothing to do with the narrative, what could have easily been a crisp flick is dragged almost 30 minutes extra. Fight sequences have been choreographed sharply, however the sound effects are poor due to the overlaps in mixing.
Verdict: A mediocre setup that wastes nearly an hour to, moves ahead on a satisfying note after the take off. Nothing great to specify, thankfully the gripping last act makes it a significantly better outing, more finesse in writing could have improved the standards.
DNA - A Fairly Engaging Crime Thriller!
Rating - 2.75/ 5