Fahadh Faasil says Dhoomam had a good concept that failed in execution
Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar’s bilingual had a good concept on paper, but one that does not work for a movie, said Fahadh, who played the lead in the Hombale Films production
Apr 16, 2024
Fahadh Faasil in Dhoomam
Lucia and U-Turn maker Pawan Kumar collaborating with Hombale Films on a project with Malayalam star Fahadh Faasil was big news, so much so that the film was highly anticipated. But all the excitement surrounding the project vanished in thin air after reports from the first show emerged. The film was widely panned, even though, Fahadh’s performance was noteworthy. The actor, who rarely speaks to the media has now opened up about why he thinks the film failed.
In a report in Onmanorama, the actor, who is currently basking in the success of his latest, Aavesham, has been quoted as saying that Dhoomam’s problem was its subject, explaining that some concepts that sound good do not necessarily turn out like that onscreen eventually. Fahadh said that there are things that ought not be made into films and Dhoomam was one of them.
In the film, Fahadh played a high flying executive with a tobacco firm, who gets caught in a revenge saga connected to the products he’d been marketing vociferously. While the initial impression was that Dhoomam’s intention was to highlight the evil’s of active and passive smoking and dissuade people from taking up the vice, Fahadh added that as a smoker, he was in no position to tell others not to.
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He added that it was never about smoking vs non-smoking, but instead about the nexus between big corporations, with a tobacco company being almost entirely owned by a life insurance firm. This, however, did not get conveyed effectively, with Dhoomam seen as a revenge thriller. The film, which released in Malayalam and Kannada, also starred Achyuth Kumar, Roshan Mathew, Aparna Balamurali, among others.
Dhoomam was based on a script that Pawan Kumar had written well over a decade ago. After failing to get the right backing to get it going, Pawan got Hombale Films interested, but had to make it in Malayalam, as the banner wanted to collaborate with Fahadh. The film is available to stream on Apple TV+
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