A great opportunity got wasted is Sohan Roy’s Dam 999. Captain Fredrick Brown (Joshua Fredric Smith) authors a book titled Dam 999 and the story is the experience of the sailor who witnessed collapse of a dam, as told in the book. The author accompanies Vinay (Vinay Raj) a marine engineer to his native land, Kerala. Vinay has his personal problems where he lost his love to the old beliefs and rituals where the new life doesn’t lead to the promising land. He is now left with a son who is suffering from juvenile diabetic and his marriage was a disaster (where they moved like hands of a clock, in different speed, we are told). When he reach back home he found his earlier love Meera (Vimala Raman) still a possibility and the emotional flood startles the walls of the dam of beliefs.
The writer(s) tries too much to achieve through a single story and failed to reach anywhere in any of the many stories implanted in it. The dialogues try to give out a lot of eastern wisdom but all goes in vein. The story writer goes to a lot of unwanted details like he stops to narrate the captain’s love to his wife and their hope to have a child where it has no connection to the central plot of the Dam or it adds any emotional value. The story teller also takes sufficient time to advertise the God’s Own Country to give the visual details of Ayurveda, Houseboats, Boat Race, Kathakali etc. The central subject of Dam got a very less coverage and when the rain started it was all sudden and unbelievable. The love stories ends as half cooked where the Dam story remain uncooked. I was expecting a dam of emotions and hopes to be collapsed like they did it in Titanic but nothing of that sort happened.
I watch the movie in 3D and without knowing that it had only limited 3D zooming effects in work, I asked the theater to change the 3 D glass as it is not working. They handed me two extra glasses to try all and I had to laugh to find that it was not the complaint of the glasses or my eyes but the movie didn’t have that much affects. Only two or three places the 3D effects were really good, like the flying bird. Many of the scenes could have been presented better, including the collapse of the dam which I felt not up to standard.
There is no hero for the film and if at all we assign Vinay Raj as hero, his performance was a nonstarter. When your Hero cannot express emotions you cannot create a dam of emotions, I am damn sure. Joshua Fredric Smith doesn’t have much to do. Rajit Kapoor did a very good job but his character didn’t have much to do. Vimala Raman did a very good job but her character was too silent to begin with. Linda Arsenio was competent in a confusing role where she did the small role with a lot of enthusiasm. Master Jineet Rath was impressive in most of the part, in the finale however he was a disaster. Megha Burman’s duty was to dress normal and play the happy wife and she did it well. Ashish Vidyarthi did his role very well but he has done it better in many other films.
Cinematography is very good where the visual images come out as impressive.
Music of the movie is very good and some are nostalgic. However I wonder why so many language confusions? English, Hindi, Malayalam....the characters fails to think in one language and it shows in music as well.
Tamil Nadu Government did a major favor to the film by banning it in the state otherwise the film would have gone without much attention but now it may be watch by some out of curiosity sake.
Overall, Dam999 fails to make any impression due to its poor screenplay which tries too much and misses all, weak performance which is a nonstarter and the characters and situations which never touches the audience hearts.
My rating: 1.5 stars