Rahul Riji Nair's comedy drama Dakini (ENG: a given name to grandmothers in Kerala, India) does not leave any stone unturned to make its viewers cringe and shut their eyes with their hands while watching. That is the sort of tomfoolery that take place on screen in this two-hour long story about a group of grandmothers locking horns with a dreaded gangster (Chemban Vinod Jose) to retrieve a person who was kidnapped by him. Dakini has it all - septuagenarians wearing fancy, colorful dresses shaking a leg and enacting horseplay, a group of goons being fooled around by a monkey, and other random acts that look courageous but are, in fact, devoid of logic and realism. I understand that Dakini has been made not to adhere to realism, but when you sit down to watch a spectacle like this there has to be a modicum of trust factor. Otherwise you won't believe in the characters, however energetic or childish they are and whatever lengths they go to tickle your bones. The story - whatever it is - starts only after the 40th minute, and by that time, you have already lost interest in this colorful piece of art that could have been so much, so much more, coming from a talented director like Nair (who also wrote this) who previously wrote and directed the brilliant Ottamuri Velicham (2017). Both these films are poles apart in content as well as what they will do to you. Dakini will surely put you to sleep, and maybe even put some angst in you. TN.
