Then Dharma goes in search of Stella where there is a shock awaiting him and later he finds Subhashini and narrates the other flash back which explains why there is so much of hatred between the brothers and what happens next is what it is all about. The first flash back ends with the college studies getting over even as the brothers are nearing him. He goes straight to the medical college he studied and in the first of two flashbacks we get to know the friendship he had with Stella (Shrusti Dange) and Subashini (Tamannaah) with the former loving him openly and the latter hiding it. Radhika manages to sneak in a blade with which he escapes but unknowingly carries the chit money with him in the bag. Ramadoss a retired constable for the job. When Dharman goes about telling the villagers that his brothers are going to cheat them of their hard earned money they decide to finish him off and call on their uncle E. He is often beaten up and locked in the motor room. The film opens with Dharma Durai an alcoholic who is a constant pain in the necks of his brothers played by Arul Dass, Soundarraja and another actor with only his mother (Radhika Sarathkumar) showering love on him. The duo has tried to spin the tale of the love and life of a rural doctor with below par results. There are quite a few moments (like the entire segment involving Anbuselvi) that convey what this director is capable of, but the synthetic sub-plots pull the film down and prevent it from becoming the emotional roller coaster that it should have been.‘Dharma Durai’ created a huge buzz because Vijay Sethupathi is teaming up with his mentor Seenu Ramaswamy for the third time. The repeated stressing of the need for altruism gets tiring at times, but in these cynical times, it does leave you with a warm feeling. The director fills the remaining time with a less involving sub-plot centred around Dharma and Subha, and brings in the matter of the money again through developments that do not feel organic.īut the film does have genuinely affecting moments, and actors like Aishwarya Rajesh (once again typecast as a poor woman), Radikaa (confident), MS Bhaskar (subtle) and Rajesh (fantastic) enhance the ordinary writing in many of the scenes. And the redemption angle is resolved midway into the second half, and we do not have anything else to care for after that. This adds some tension to the initial scenes, but soon, it is side-lined for the campus scenes, which come across as artificial. The director takes too long to get into the story, and uses a framing device about a bag of cash that Dharmadurai mistakenly takes along with him when he leaves home, which gets his family into trouble. We are introduced to Anbuselvi (Aishwarya Rajesh), a worker, whom Dharma falls in love with, and we learn how, despite his do-gooder nature, the romance ends in tragedy because of the greed and regressive attitude of his brothers.ĭharmadurai has a great central conflict - how even a person with good intentions can become a liability for someone else because of those around him - but Seenuramasamy’s resolution of this conflict feels unsatisfactory. And finally, we get the reason for Dharma’s need to seek solace in alcohol. Then, there is their saintly professor Dr Kamaraj (Rajesh), who keeps urging them to treat the profession as a service and work in the villages. We see his gang of friends, which includes Stella (Srushti Dange) and Subhashini (Tamannaah, who does a commendable job dubbing for herself), and the two pine for him, the former openly, and the latter in silence. His mother, Pandiyammal (Radikaa), is the only one who stands up for him, and we get the sense that there is some reason behind Dharmadurai’s alcoholism.īut the director holds on to that for quite a while, instead choosing to narrate the college days of Dharma. The first time we see Dharmadurai (Vijay Sethupathi, solid), he is at a local bar, and the director shows us how his oafish behaviour is a constant source of embarrassment to his brothers (each one named after the Pandavas of the Mahabharata), who even plot to harm him grievously to stop him from maligning them further.
Like the hero of that film, the protagonist of this one, too, is an alcoholic. Review: The opening minutes of Dharmadurai bring to mind Seenuramasamy’s previous released film Neerparavai (the film that he shot after that, Idam Porul Yeval, is still lying in the cans and even gets referenced here). What caused this descent, and can he redeem himself?
Synopsis: A doctor turns into an alcoholic, and becomes an embarrassment for his brothers.