Very few actors have created a zone or niche as quickly as Pradeep Ranganathan. Be it his directorial debut Comali or the two films he did as hero (Love Today and Dragon), there is a formula to his characterisation. That formula is ENERGY with the caps. Pradeep's energy just explodes on screen and it is then about how much you can take as a viewer. With Dude, he takes it to the next level.
Agan (Pradeep) is your typical boy-next-door with inexplicable energy and logics. He is also the modern day man who is eternally confused about relationships. After one of his numerous breakups, his cousin and bestie Kural (Mamitha Baiju) proposes to him, because she always loved him since childhood. The 'maama ponnu-athai payyan' connection you see?
The sequence of events happen just as abruptly and mindlessly as the sentences I have put together above. Nevertheless, we wait for the conflict to appear. Initially, Agan rejects the proposal because he never had 'that feeling' for Kural. She accepts the rejection with grace and decides to move on.
Within no time, Agan realises that he is missing Kural and that he actually loves her. Kural's father Athiyamaan Azhagappan (Sarath Kumar) is a powerful minister in the state cabinet and is only too happy to get the marriage done. So, when Agan tells him about his feelings, he gets all the arrangements for the wedding. However, we know that there is a twist in store and right on cue, it comes.
It is Kural's turn to turn down the wedding because he is in love with Paari (Hridhu Haroon). Initially, Agan coaxes Kural to tell her father the truth and she nearly does. However, that conversation turns ugly with a twist and it forces them to abort the plan of making the confession.
Agan and Kural get married, but the plan is for Kural to elope with Paari right after marriage. However, one incident after the other forces Kural to stay back with Paari before a major twist happens near the interval point, turning the whole game upside down. There was already one secret to hide and now an even bigger obstacle comes their way.
How Agan and Kural navigate through this self-created mess is what Dude is all about. Debutant Keerthiswaran, who has also scripted the film, is guilty of extremely inconsistent writing that ranges from some really solid moments to a series of cringe-worthy sequences that can make you tear your hair apart. There are also some questionable dialogues and sequences in the film.
Dude has some nice core ideas in Dude as the film tries to convey some socially relevent messages. However, in a bid to stick to the template commercial entertainer, Keerthiswaran loses his grip over the writing. In fact, it is only from the pre-interval portions that the film starts to take itself seriously.
The post-interval portions have some good moments but thereafter, the screenplay gets messier with some poorly written sequences. Pradeep, though, holds things together to some extent with his insatiable energy. However, unlike Love Today and Dragon where his timing was nearly flawless, Dude is a hit-and-miss performance from him.
Mamitha Baiju, meanwhile, has a solid debut and her performances in the emotional sequences are one of the major strong points of the film. As is Sai Abhyankkar's music and background score which elevate the film by a few notches. Sarath Kumar also puts in a terrific act worthy of his veteran status while the other characters are mostly reduced to props in the narrative, including Rohini who plays Pradeep mother.
Keerthiswaran's direction and writing has a very inconsistent graph to it, thereby making a promising premise into a half-baked product. The film, however, could work with the Tamil Nadu audience, especially this Diwali season with no other competition in this genre. That said, Pradeep might have to rethink this formula as it isn't one that he can keep redoing for long.
Overall, Dude is a wannabe madcap entertainer that doesn't always strike the right chords and hence, ends up as an average fare.
Film: Dude
Director: Keerthiswaran
Cast: Pradeep Ranganathan, Mamitha Baiju, Sarath Kumar, Rohini, Neha Shetty,
Rating: 2.5/5
