1 week Ago
We have seen various iterations of the private detective in books and cinema. This detective can either be wealthy, neat and sophisticated or broke, dishevelled and despondent. Some of the most appealing and popular ones in fiction belong to the latter category.
There is author Raymond Chandler, who created the gentlemanly but not wealthy detective Philip Marlowe; or Dashiell Hammett, who envisioned different kinds of detectives that exist on all sides of the economic spectrum. Mammootty's character, CI Dominic, is the broke version — a former, disgraced cop who cannot afford a flamboyant lifestyle; he is a gentleman but also has a proclivity for inflating his achievements. He has no qualms about telling his newly joined assistant (Gokul Suresh) to pay the bill because he "forgot" to take the purse.
This kind of detective is closer to real life — you may have noticed detective agencies similar to Dominic's while taking the metro to work. Mammootty makes the best out of what he has been given. Here is an actor who has played different kinds of investigators in cinema throughout his career; ideally, an actor should feel bored and exhausted from playing an investigator more times than we can count.
However, Dominic and the Ladies' Purse offers Mammootty another commendable opportunity for experimentation. His character sketch has enough details to give us a true sense of who Dominic really is. The film's cleverly written early portions provide enough situations to generate humour, sometimes at the expense of this detective, because he has enough shortcomings to make him feel like he is one of us.
We get a few instances where Mammootty reminds us again why he is...
Mammootty. One perfect example is the scene where he is at a dance performance, evidently smitten by the beauty and grace of a woman, and he gives this particular expression that seems to convey that either he has suddenly become conscious of the fact that she is half his age or he has become too cynical to think about romantic pursuits. We are free to read this expression in any way we want it.
But I think this scene begins to make much sense when we place it in the context of the film's final moments. There is an oft-repeated line of Dominic that goes, "Deductions can sometimes be 20% wrong." Through Dominic, Mammootty shows us a character who may have sorted out some mysteries to much success but couldn't sort out the case of his own disordered, morally conflicted life.
We get brief shades of Mammootty's iconic performances in films like Kottayam Kunjachan, Johnnie Walker, Aavanazhi, and Sukrutham . Fortunately, despite its occasional detour into darker territory, Dominic and the Ladies' Purse is a largely lighthearted affair. However, the script doesn't do enough justice to the strengths of Mammootty's performance.
Simply put, it doesn't have enough meat on its bones. Yes, we get the occasional funny references to the earlier films of Mammootty and Suresh Gopi when, for example, these characters try to figure out someone's password. Yes, there is the much-welcome subversion of the 'Gautham Menon heroine'.
But not every situation into which Dominic gets thrown is compelling or gripping enough, and we begin to feel weary and impatient. And all those fight scenes felt unnecessary, bland, and forcefully included. Barring the solidly written characters given to Mammootty or newcomer Sushmita Bhat, the secondary players come off as flat, one-dimensional characters we have seen in much older films.
Gokul Suresh's character, for example, seems to have been installed primarily to extoll the extraordinary skills of Dominic. But, there's the nagging sense that any ordinary individual could've made some of these deductions. The film comes really alive in the final minutes, where we get a thought-provoking twist that feels like a homage to one of Mammootty's popular hits.
However, it doesn't feel convincing enough when we think back to the point at which it all began. Basically, the film comes up short when considering some of the recent Malayalam thrillers that have considerably raised the bar. Film: Dominic and the Ladies' Purse Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon Cast: Mammootty, Gokul Suresh, Sushmita Bhat, Vineeth, Viji Venkatesh Rating: 2.
5/5.
