“Dead Dead Full Dead”: Fantasia Review | Reviews

Director: Pratul Gaikwad. Country: India. 2024. 110 mins

Pratul Gaikwad’s Dead, dead, full, dead is the latest addition to the happy trend of low-budget, high-concept films from India. But while it goes all out with its story of two young cops trying to solve a murder, it loses the thread between concept and execution. It’s a film that tries too much – it’s a crime thriller that tries to be metaphysical, a comedy that veers into the supernatural, and it also has a love story lurking in it. But all of these elements miss the mark.

Losing track between concept and implementation

Dead, dead, full, dead seems to be a rather atypical Indian film whose quirkiness has value for foreign audiences. That could boost its chances of further festival appearances after its Fantasia premiere and help pique the curiosity of India’s growing niche of genre cinema, despite its obvious lack of broad appeal.

The younger copies Balraam, aka Balu (Yug Italiya), and Zubeida, aka Zubi (Monika Chaudhary), are very much in love with each other. They are notorious for their inefficiency and are only taken on important tasks by their elder Patil (Abhijeet Chavan) – like looking after a goat that he wants to gift to his estranged wife. They fail even in this responsibility and the animal turns into a lifeless toy thanks to their ineptitude and a cosmic intervention.

Then an old lady, Basanti Bachchan (Flora Jacob), who is said to be suffering from dementia, reports the murder of her neighbour Era (Swastika Mukherjee), an astrologer and influential person, and claims that Era’s husband, businessman Rahul (Ashwin Mushran), who umpires cricket and plays with paper airplanes, is the murderer. But as the investigation progresses, suspicion falls on Basanti himself, as well as the sinister maid Chhotu (Sachin Vidrohi), who is constantly pumping dangerous cooking gas into balloons. Things get even more confusing when Era returns from the afterlife to help with the investigation.

For a wider Indian audience, some elements of the film – the lunar eclipse, wandering ghosts and restless souls that transcend time, occult science and the bumbling cops – might feel like a throwback to haunted house films of yore, such as Kamal Amrohi’s classic. Mahal, and undemanding, dingy cult police series like BP Singh’s CID. What Dead, dead, full, dead However, it can’t decide whether to poke fun at the long-standing codes and conventions of Indian horror cinema and the cop universe or to pay homage to them. Either way, it lacks the gripping narrative of the former and the immensely entertaining spirit and fanatic fan base of the latter.

The weirdness of the eclectic cast of characters isn’t exactly wonderful either. Their varied manias aren’t magical enough. The ensemble boasts two acclaimed, competent actors (Swastika and Ashwin), but even they are unable to overcome the callousness that pervades the entire film.

As the plot progresses, the paranormal looms large and the cops and the audience travel back in time in the name of the investigation. But in the end, there isn’t enough interest in solving the mystery and finding the killer. To add to the drudgery, the filmmaker also throws in some self-aware but half-baked symbolism about class differences and the damaging influencer culture, as well as banal dialogue comparing life to a smoothie that tastes like hope, regret and nostalgia. Ultimately, Dead, dead, full, dead tries very hard to get laughs, but doesn’t even manage a giggle.