Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse movie review: Gautham Vasudev Menon, Mammootty deliver an amateurish mystery comedy

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However, the grandiose claims he makes to his new assistant Vignesh (Gokul Suresh) about his past as a crime-fighting police officer before leaving the force, raise doubts about what the truth about him really is. If both versions are indeed true, what led him from his past to his present state? Either way, with months of unpaid rent hanging over him, Dominic reluctantly agrees to help his landlord Madhuri (Viji Venkatesh) to locate the owner of a ladies’ purse she found in a public place and return it. However, what begins as a simple case soon escalates into a mystery involving two missing persons, leaving Dominic and Vignesh in limbo — and sparking their curiosity to get to the bottom of it.

From the very beginning, Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse consistently evokes a feeling in us; and that’s frustration. It’s not that the GVM film is outright terrible, but the sheer carelessness in its execution is so palpable that the movie ultimately feels like a series of wasted opportunities. Without any starry embellishments, Mammootty is interestingly introduced as a sketchy detective who repeatedly repurposes his living room to stage crime scenes for his true crime YouTube show. The space is perpetually chaotic — almost resembling a junkyard — yet Dominic’s first appearance in a bathrobe feels completely out of sync with his surroundings, raising intrigue. At the same time, the story is set in an environment rich with potential for exploration. However, DALP never ventures beyond the confines of Dominic and Madhuri’s apartment complex and the movie is filled with such fascinating aforementioned moments that could have contributed to character development or added depth to the narrative, but the writers fail to take advantage of any of these opportunities and instead hastily move from one point to another very carelessly.

Watch Mammootty, Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse trailer here:

While GVM has mostly opted for simple scenarios and conflicts that might arise during such an investigation, many moments are handled in an unrefined manner, lacking a professional touch — almost as if the film’s made by an amateur. Even the exchanges between the Holmes-Watson-like duo Dominic and Vignesh feel flat due to poorly crafted dialogues, worsened by their poor characterisations. While much of the film feels amateurish, certain elements, like the ‘jokes’, come across as overly contrived. The humour is not only poorly handled but also falls flat, with no joke landing effectively, leaving one almost feeling sorry for the makers seeing them try too hard.

Among the many missteps in DAPL, the most glaring is its interval block, which cuts off right at the start of a fight. While GVM’s intention here is clear, it backfires completely, resulting in one of the sloppiest interval moments in recent memory.

Another significant issue with the film lies in its poorly executed sync sound and overreliance on background music. Although GVM is known for his skill in integrating music with visuals, here he unnecessarily places loud background tracks throughout the film and Darbuka Siva’s compositions don’t help much either. In one particularly intense scene involving a vehicle collision, an entirely out-of-sync, power-packed track plays in the background. While filmmakers often use contrasting music to enhance certain moments’ emotions — like using melodies in action scenes — here, the visuals and the background score are so mismatched that they disrupt the viewing experience.

Yet another significant downside of DALP is its sloppy and aimless editing, which has almost drained the film of its already fragile soul. What makes this all the more disheartening is that it comes from the iconic duo of GVM and editor Anthony, who gifted Tamil cinema with two of its most impeccably edited sequences of all time — in the songs “Hosanna” and “Omana Penne” from Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010). The shoddiness in the editing becomes even more evident in the fight scenes, which lack originality and feel completely staged.

Even the climax twist seems overly forced and makes one feel that the specific one was chosen only because discussions on the topic have been in vogue. The dialogues featured there demonstrate the lack of thought and heart that have gone into the matter, which is handled in an overly superficial manner.

Filmmaker Gautham Vasudev Menon with Mammootty on the sets of Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse. (Credit: Facebook/@mammoottykampanyofficial)

Despite its many issues, what makes Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse a watchable film is the endearing charm Mammootty has given the character. The 73-year-old not only manages to give Dominic a boy-next-door aura, he also fully lets go of his superstardom here, thus heightening the character’s appeal. Not only is he no Sethurama Iyer, the investigator is also purely average, who has experienced a lot in life including a divorce and mockery due to his colour blindness, and whose predictions from his ‘Dominic tingle’ frequently go wrong. In spite of the fact that Dominic has a poor reputation in the police department and a very low sense of self-esteem too, Mammootty is able to give the character a soul that only emerges when one approaches roles as an actor and not a superstar.

Despite appearing frequently in the film, Gokul Suresh’s character is entirely squandered as a mere spectral presence, contributing nothing beyond the superficial. In the end, even his performance ends up being mediocre. Although actors such as Vineeth, Lena, Siddique, Vijay Babu and Viji Venkatesh make appearances, none of their characters are well stretched out and their performances do nothing to improve the situation.

Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse movie cast: Mammootty, Gokul Suresh, Sushmitha Bhatt, Viji Venkatesh
Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse movie director: Gautham Vasudev Menon
Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse movie rating: 1.5 stars