Gautham Vasudev Menon Archives

Review: ‘DD Next Level,’ starring Santhanam, Geethika Tiwary, Selvaraghavan and Gautham Vasudev Menon

May 18, 2025

by Carla Hay

Rajendran and Santhanam in “DD Next Level” (Photo courtesy of Niharika Entertainment)

Directed by S. Prem Anand

Tamil with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the horror comedy film “DD Next Level” (the fourth movie in the “Dhilluku Dhuddu/Devil’s Double” series) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A YouTube movie reviewer, his girlfriend, his sister, his parents and his friend get trapped in a movie directed by a demonic ghost, who says they can only survive if they complete certain challenges in the movie.

Culture Audience: “DD Next Level” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Dhilluku Dhuddu/Devil’s Double” series, and people who don’t mind watching terrible horror comedies.

Selvaraghavan in “DD Next Level” (Photo courtesy of Niharika Entertainment)

“DD Next Level” is an atrocious step down for this horror comedy franchise. This loud and obnoxious movie falls flat in its attempted parody of volatile feelings that filmmakers and YouTube reviewers have for each other. The movie’s concept could have been turned into a genuinely interesting movie, but “DD Next Level” just turns into a messy onslaught of terrible jokes, despicable characters and horror stereotypes that aren’t scary at all.

Written and directed by S. Prem Anand, “DD Next Level” is the fourth movie in the “Dhilluku Dhuddu/Devil’s Double” horror comedy series. 2016’s “Dhilluku Dhuddu” and 2019’s “Dhilluku Dhuddu” were written and directed by Rambhala. Anand wrote and directed 2023’s “Dhilluku Dhuddu Returns,” the third movie in the series. Santhanam is the star of all four movies, which have separate stories and different characters for each movie.

In “DD Next Level,” Santhanam portrays an unlikable dimwit named Krishnamoorty, nicknamed Kissa, who does movie reviews on YouTube under the name Kissa 47. Kissa (who’s apparently a wannabe rapper too, because he does his reviews as rap lyrics) can’t go five minutes without saying the word “bro,” in case you wondering how limited his vocabulary is. Kissa’s generic girlfriend Aasai Harshini (played by Geethika Tiwary) is also a YouTuber.

At an abandoned theater called Cinema Paradise, a vengeful ghost of a film director named Hitchcock Iruthyaraj (played by Selvaraghavan) tricks film critics to go to the theater, where he can kill them. Hitchcock blames any of his career failures on film critics. Hitchcock has such extraordinary supernatural powers, he can create the illusion that this decrepit theater looks new and enticing when he wants to lure people to the venue.

An early scene in the movie shows real-life YouTube film critic Prashanth Rangasamy becoming one of Hitchcock’s victims. Somehow, Hitchcock has been getting away with these serial killings for years, before and after his death. “DD Next Level” wants viewers to believe that no one would notice or figure out that people keep disappearing when they go to Cinema Paradise.

Hitchcock’s next targets are Kissa and another buffoonish YouTube movie critic/gossiper named Veen Pechu Babu (played by Rajendran), nicknamed Babu, who are invited to an advance screening of a movie at Cinema Paradise. Babu is never convincing as a YouTuber and just seems to be in the movie so it won’t look like Hitchcock only wants to kill movie reviewers who are under the age of 40. Kissa’s guests for this screening are his girlfriend Aasai, his sister Devi (played by Yashika Aannand), his father (played by Nizhalgal Ravi) and his mother (played by Kasthuri Shankar), who go to the screening separately from Kissa.

When Kissa arrives at the theater, he finds out that Hitchcock is a demonic-looking ghost. Hitchcock has zaps Kissa and Babu into the giant screen in the theater. Kissa and Babu end up on cruise ship called The Cordelia. It’s here that Kissa and Babu both find out that Hitchcock has trapped them into one of his horror movies that had gotten a lot of criticism from Kissa and Babu. Aasai, Devi, Kissa’s parents are trapped in the movie too.

Somehow, Kissa and Babu can see Hitchcock sitting in the Cinema Paradise, as he barks out commands and tells them that the only way that Kissa, Babu and the other trapped people can get out alive is if they pass certain obstacles in the movie. It’s an example of how poorly conceived “DD Next Level” is because Hitchcock’s horror movie is really structured like a video game.

Kissa and Babu are themselves during this race against death, but they find out that the people whom Kissa knows are not themselves but are different characters in this movie within a movie. Kissa’s father has become the ship’s Captain McDonald, who is a playboy with a preference for much-younger women. Kissa’s religious mother becomes a seductive thief named Shilpa. Aasai becomes a ghost called Jessica Sebastian, the long-lost wealthy owner of an island called Cuckoo’s Nest. Devi becomes Maya, a seductress who has her sights set on Inspector Raghavan (played by Gautham Vasudev Menon), a police official who’s not as helpful as he could be in fighting the villains.

Each “challenge” is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 is “The Masked Killer,” where a masked killer is on the loose on the cruise ship. The masked killer scenes are poor imitations of what can be seen in “Halloween” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Chapter 2 is “Mystic Island,” where the characters go to a mansion on Cuckoo’s Nest island and are haunted by the ghost of Jessica, but the masked killer shows up in this chapter too. Chapter 3 is “Haunted Factory,” where the monsters are zombies called “maneaters” in an industrial factory that looks like it’s been through an apocalypse.

None of it as thrilling as it should be, although the movie’s production design is one of the few things in “DD Next Level” that isn’t substandard. Most of the acting performances are shrill, manic and extremely annoying. And the story is just a jumble of tiresome chase scenes and other nonsense.

It all comes down to lazy filmmaking. The conflict in this time-wasting film is about a bitter director who lashes out at a movie reviewer because the director doesn’t like getting negative reviews. Ironically, “DD Next Level” is exactly the type of cinematic abomination that will inevitably get bad reviews from critics and audiences.

Niharika Entertainment released “DD Next Level” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on May 16, 2025.

Review: ‘Dragon’ (2025), starring Pradeep Ranganathan, Anupama Parameswaran and Kayadu Lohar

February 28, 2025

by Carla Hay

Gautham Vasudev Menon and Pradeep Ranganathan in “Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Phars Film)

“Dragon” (2025)

Directed by Ashwath Marimuthu

Tamil with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India from 2014 to 2024, the comedy film “Dragon” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A man goes from being a college dropout to a con artist who buys a fake college degree so he can get a high-paying computer technology job, but his lies end up catching up to him.

Culture Audience: “Dragon” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching a high-energy comedy that takes a few unpredictable turns.

Mysskin, Pradeep Ranganathan and VJ Siddhu in “Dragon” (Photo courtesy of Phars Film)

“Dragon” starts off looking like a slapstick comedy that’s too absurd for its own good. However, this movie about a rebellious con artist gets better as it goes along, and it ends in a surprisingly meaningful way. The performances elevate the story. The movie’s biggest drawback is that it’s a little too long (157 minutes), but there are enough twists and turns in the plot to almost justify this lengthy run time.

Written and directed by Ashwath Marimuthu, “Dragon” takes place in India, from the years 2014 to 2024. The movie begins by showing Dhanapal Ragavan (played by Pradeep Ranganathan), who is a student at ASG Engineering College in Vellore, India. Dhanapal has a crush on another student named Anjana (played by Gopika Ramesh), even though Dhanapal already has a steady girlfriend named Keerthi Deepak (played by Anupama Parameswaran), who is also a student at the school.

One day, Anjana tells Dhanapal that she is attracted to “bad boys.” And then, quicker than you can say “dishonest chameleon,” Dhanapal becomes a troublemaker at school. He leads a group of other student hooligans, including his best friend Anbu (played by VJ Siddhu), for several misdeeds, such as starting physical fights and committing vandalism. Dhanapal gives himself the nickname Dragon when he decides he’s going to have a “bad boy” reputation.

Dhanapal gets punished by school officials but he is such an academically gifted student, he’s been able to avoid getting expelled. But one day, Dhanapal takes things to far. He throws a bottle, which happens to break the car window of the school’s dean Mayilvahanan (played by Mysskin), who is in the car at the time of this vandalism.

An enraged Mayilvahanan suspends Dhanapal, but other students beg Mayilvahanan to give Dhanapal another chance. Mayilvahanan agrees on one condition: Dhanapal must attend all of Mayilvahanan’s for the next three months. Dhanapal rejects this offer and drops out of school in a huff.

Dhanapal is still living with his loving and supportive parents—father Dhanapal Sr. (played by George Maryan) and mother Chitra (played by Indumathy Manikandan)—who have no idea that Dhanapal has dropped out of college. His parents are financially struggling, partially because they took out a loan to pay for Dhanapal’s education. Dhanapal pretends that he graduated from college. He lies to parents by telling them he’s gotten a fairly well-paying engineering job at an information technology company.

In reality, Dhanapal has been extorting his law-breaking pals to give him money, which Dhanapal pretends to his parents is his “salary.” Dhanapal gives his parents some of the money to help pay for the parents’ expenses, but he come up with phony excuses for why he needs to keep most of the money for himself. When Dhanapal pretends to go to work, he’s actually hanging out with his partier friends and getting drunk. Dhanapal’s rejects Anbu’s suggestion to become a rideshare driver because Dhanapal says that type of job doesn’t pay enough.

Dhanapal doesn’t feel much guilt about leading a double life and all the deceit that he perpetuates. In fact, he makes his parents feel guilty and sometimes yells at them if they ask him for money to help with their expenses. His mother gets a little suspicious from time time, but his father completely trusts and believes everything that Dhanapal says. Whenever, Chitra asks Dhanapal questions that could expose the truth, Dhanapal Sr. will scolds his wife by telling her she’s being too paranoid.

Dhanapal is a dishonest jerk, but he hasn’t been able to foool everyone. Keerthi knows that he’s an unemployed loser. And when Keerthi’s parents arrange for her to marry a math professor at Delhi University, she breaks up with Dhanapal during a tension-filled dinner at a restaurant. Dhanapal had wanted to marry Keerthi, so he’s angry and heartbroken.

Dhanapal reminds Keerthi that she proposed marriage to Dhanapal, so he doesn’t understand why she’s now rejecting him. Keerth bluntly says, “You can be a good lover, but not the right life partner.” Keerthi and Dhanapal have a shouting argument in the restaurant when he does something despicable during the argument: He puts his hands around her neck, as if he’s going to choke her. But then he stops before things go too far.

Dhanapal spends the next several weeks in a drunken stupor. One day, he’s driving a moped while drunk and gets into a accident where he falls down on the moped and injures himself. At the hospital where he gets medical treatment for his injuries, he tells the doctor that he hasn’t been sleeping well because he feeling sad over a recent breakup. The doctor tells Dhanapal to focus on being successful.

One evening, Dhanapal gets invited to a party at the upscale house of his friend Gowtham (played by Ashwath Marimuthu) and his wife Sherin (played by Anveshi Jain), who seem to enjoying an upper-middle-class lifestyle because of Gowtham’s job as an engineer. Dhanapal is slightly envious and asks Gowtham how he’s been able to get the engineering job without a college degree. Gowtham confides in Dhanapal that he paid for a fake college degree and gives him the name and contact information of the place where Dhanapal could get the same thing done for him.

This advice sets Dhanapal on a path of more deception. Dhanapal meets with the sleazy operator Rajesh M.S. (played by Fatman Ravinder) who sells these phony college degrees. It’s enough to say that Dhanapal’s life ends up changing in different ways. He decides that he no longer wants to be an engineer and wants to focus on computer programming instead.

Dhanapal gets a job at a computer software company called Lateral View, where he reports to a vice president named as Vale “Vel” Kumar (played by Gautham Vasudev Menon), who was the same person who interviewed Dhanapal. Dhanapal does very well at Lateral View. Because of Dhanapal’s financial success, he attracts many women, but he stays focused on his work, until he meets and falls for Pallavi Parasuram (played by Kayadu Lohar), the daughter of a wealthy businessman named Parasuram (played K. S. Ravikumar), who is eager to have Pallavi marry Dhanapal.

None of the above is really spoiler information, since a lot of these plot points are revealed in the movie’s trailer. There’s a lot more to the story, because Dhanapal still hasn’t completely gotten over the breakup from Keerthi. Something happens that causes a predictable love triangle. Furthermore, Dhanapal’s lie about his college education ends up coming back to haunt him.

Throughout “Dragon,” there are flashbacks and musical numbers, most of which didn’t really need to be in the movie. There are also scenes of Dean Mayilvahanan in an ASG Engineering College lecture hall, where he tells assembled students about Dragon and warns them not to make the same mistakes. This lecture takes on a new meaning by the end of the story.

“Dragon” is often very hyper and loud, but the comedic timing and acting talent of the cast members make ths movie mostly entertaining to watch. Ranganathan skillfully plays Dhanapal as someone who is easy to despise in the beginning of the film, but layers of Dhanapal’s personality gradually emerge and viewers might change their feelings about him during certain parts of the movie. Lohar is also quite good in the role of Pallavi, who has the unfortunate circumstance of falling in love with someone who’s still hung up on a previous love.

Even some of the most stereotypical things that happen in a comedy with a love triangle (such as pretending to one love interest to be somewhere else in order to be with the other love interest) is amusing in the movie. However, some of these antics come close to being repetitive and irritating when the jokes get a little over-used. There’s also a character named Vetri (played by Harshath Khan), who calls himself Kutty Dragon, who is intentionally annoying. “Dragon” is a flawed by watchable film that doesn’t sink into mediocrity, thanks to the last 20 minutes of the movie, which ends in an impactful way.

Phars Film released “Dragon” in select U.S. cinemas on February 21, 2025, the same date that the movie was released in India.

Review: ‘Michael’ (2023), starring Sundeep Kishan, Vijay Sethupathi, Divyansha Kaushik, Gautham Vasudev Menon and Varun Sandesh

February 10, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sundeep Kishan in “Michael” (Photo courtesy of Karan C Productions and Sree Venkateswara Cinemas)

“Michael” (2023)

Directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in early 1990s and briefly in the 1980s, primarily in the Indian cities of Bombay and Delhi, the action film “Michael” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An orphan who was adopted by a crime boss grows up to be a thug innvolved the boss’ revenge schmes and murder sprees, while secrets and lies affect people’s motives.

Culture Audience: “Michael” will appeal primarily to people who want to watch a lot of gruesome and gratituous violence in a movie that doesn’t have anything of quality to offer.

Gautham Vasudev Menon (center) in “Michael” (Photo courtesy of Karan C Productions and Sree Venkateswara Cinemas)

“Michael” is yet another mindless action flick about gangs and other people who are out for revenge. The story is a narrative mess, the fight scenes are unrealistic, and the acting is terrible. And with a total running time of 155 minutes, this flimsy story is dragged out for too long and quickly wears out its welcome with a lot of bloody and empty violence until the movie’s very predictable end.

Written and directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi, “Michael” does nothing clever or truly original, since it rips off ideas that have been in much better films. The movie (which take place in India, mostly in the early 1990s) tells a sloppily made story about an orphan who was unofficially adopted by a crime boss and has grown up to be a leading enforcer in his adoptive father’s gang. It should come as no surprise that secrets from certain characters’ past lives end up being revealed as a plot twist, although viewers who’ve seen enough of these types of unimaginative movies can easily predict this plot twist.

The title character in “Michael” is a swaggering thug (played by Sundeep Kishan), who has a mysterious past. In the early 1980s, Michael was adopted as an orphaned adolescent by a Bombay-based crime boss named Gurunath (played by Gautham Vasudev Menon), who has taught Michael everything that Michael knows about how to be a ruthless criminal. Michael has become Gurunath’s most trusted and most powerful enforcer.

However, not everyone in this crime family is a fan of Michael. Gurunath and his wife Charulatha (played by Anasuya Bharadwaj) have a biological son named Amarnath (Varun Sandesh ), who’s about the same age as Michael. Charulatha and Amarnath seem to resent Michael and treat him like an interloper in the family. Amarnath is predictably jealous of Michael because Gurunath respects Michael more than he respects Amarnath. Michael will most likely be named the successor to Gurunath’s crime operations.

Michael’s loyalty to Gurunath will be tested when Gurunath orders Michael to go to Delhi to kill two people: another crime boss named Rathan (played by Anish Kuruvilla) and Rathan’s seductive daughter Theera (played by Divyansha Kaushik), who doesn’t do much in the movie except pout, act sexy, and do some awkwardly place song-and-dance numbers. Gurunath wants Rathan and Theera to be murdered as revenge, because some of Rathan’s goons kidnapped Michael and stabbed Gurunath.

The movie never shows how, but Michael escapes from this kidnapping. (It’s an example of the movie’s awful screenwriting.) The next thing that viewers see is Michael taking a huge slab of boned meat and going into a nightclub and assaulting people with this slab of meat. He then uses weapons and his fists to assault more people. Many of the men being attacked work with gangster RK (played by R. K. Mama), who is an associate of Gurunath and who is also in the nightclub. RK warns Michael: “Michael, the day I come back will be your death day.”

Before Michael gets sent on the murder mission, Gurunath warns Michael not to be seduced by Theera. This is an example of some of the terrible dialogue in the movie: Gurunath tells Michael that female spiders kill male spiders after mating with them. “Women do the same things,” Gurunath adds. “We just don’t see it.” As soon as Gurunath makes this misogynistic statement, you just know that Michael will be seduced by Theera.

Michael starts off by stalking Theera, who ends up getting a car ride from Michael and tells him that she knows that he’s been following her. Theera asks Michael to stop the car so that she can get some ice cream from a street vendor. Then she smirks and tells Michael: “I like to slap before I kiss … You’re not the only person I’m kissing. You want to sleep with me, no? You’re not my type. I’m warning you: Don’t fall in love with me.”

Be prepared for more mind-numbing and idiotic scenes like that, because “Michael” is full of them. There’s a subplot about Michael getting protection from an unnamed operative (played by Vijay Sethupathi) and his wife (played by Varalaxmi Sarathkumar), who have clues to Michael’s murky past. Michael also has a faithful sidekick named Swami (played by Ayyappa P. Sharma), who is kind of useless and isn’t in the movie as much as people might think he should be.

“Michael” is nothing more than bombastic and ludicrous fight scenes cobbled together, with a few musical numbers thrown in to make the movie even more erratic. All of the characters don’t have any real substance and just go through the motions. The action scenes are beyond stupid and just further lower the quality of this already low-quality movie. The ending of “Michael” makes it obvious that the filmmakers would like to make a sequel to this atrocity, which should be avoided if viewers care about preserving some of their own brain cells.

Karan C Productions and Sree Venkateswara Cinemas released “Michael” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on February 3, 2023.