LGM Review: Dhoni's maiden innings in films is a boring yawn-fest, courtesy its wafer-thin plot and weak screenplay

This badly written film and weakly executed screenplay is exacerbated by poorly etched characters, cliches and forced humour, so much so that you soon run out of patience

Harish Kalyan in a poster of LGM

Let's Get Married

Story: A young woman decides to go on a trip with her future mother-in-law in an attempt to get to know her better. Will she be successful in her endeavour?

Review: MS Dhoni's maiden innings in films, deserved a better start! Considering the warm relationship the ace cricketer shares with the people of Tamil Nadu and vice versa, this surely isn't what was expected from namma Thala. In short, his debut film, LGM is what one would call Thala's worst innings till date!

Also Read: Harish Kalyan on LGM: No matter how many films Thala Dhoni makes, I will have the honour of being his first hero 

The plot revolves around a young woman Meera (Ivana) who after two years of courtship with her boyfriend (Gowtham), proposes a trip with her future mother-in-law (Nadiya Moidu) in an attempt to get to know her better and strike a chord with her. What follows is a comedy of errors. Will Meera be able to connect with her future mother-in-law amid all the chaos?

This is an interesting premise, which could have been milked to its fullest. However, debutant director Ramesh Thamilmani falters relentlessly in the execution. Right from the outset, when Goutham tries to propose to Meera, nothing seems to be going right for LGM.

Considering the film is billed as a romantic comedy, neither does the opening scene give you the romantic vibes, nor does it make you laugh. It feels like the director is in a perpetual state of confusion on which road to take as far as the presentation is concerned. The opening scene sets the tone for the film, which is a bland affair and the mood lingers till the end.

What's also appalling is that none of the characters are etched well and neither do they have the space to evolve as the plot progresses. Just like the screenplay, the lead characters are in a constant state of bafflement. One minute Meera decides to get married, then the next minute, she changes her mind. However, amid the chaotic mess, Meera seems to be the one person who seems to know what she wants, at least to some extent.

As for Goutham, he asks Meera out at first, then rescinds the request. Similarly, out of the blue, he decides to invite a friend with whom he hasn't been in touch for 9 years, for a trip with his girlfriend and mother. The way he convinces Deepa akka (Vinodhini Vaidyanathanan) to join them, looks quite forced into the narrative and neither does her addition add any excitement to the goings-on. Later, all we see of Gowtham is he travelling from Chennai to Coorg, Coorg to Goa, Goa to Coorg, during which some of his friends and family drop in and out of the trip, and he keeps packing and unpacking.

We hope we atleast get to see some beautiful locales considering the characters are mostly travelling, but the cinematography doesn't help either and the camera is stuck in the vehicle among the superficial characters who have no clue about what to do next. 

When Yogi Babu arrives in the scene, we heave a sigh of relief hoping for some kind of a fillip to the inspid plot, but even he doesn't come to our rescue. His jokes, too, falls flat. Finally, when Meera proposes that she and her future mother-in-law go on a solo trip after laying some ground rules, our hopes rise to an extent expecting a fun ladies' trip, but things quickly go downhill from there. Neither do their combination scenes feel organic, but they soon turn into a cringe fest when they go pubbing and later, enter an ashram where everyone is high on drugs. The final nail on the coffin is when the ladies fight it out with a tiger (result of some terrible CGI work).

Also Read: Nadiya Moidu on LGM: When I heard Dhoni was venturing into films, I was quite surprised - Exclusive 

LGM is marred by cliches and forced humour at every nook and corner that it soon begins to get vexatious. The scene where an old man constantly asks the bus driver to make a pitstop for his loo break gets on your nerves. Do people still find toilet humour funny? Moreover, Nadiya and Ivana keep pronouncing 'rendu' as 'randu' (the Malayalam way) which adds to the superficiality considering the characters are all Tamil. There is no chemistry between the lead pair either. And the songs come as speed breakers with none of them making an impact.

 In the film, every time Gowtham narrates his love story to others, they all call it one thing - 'mokkai' That's exactly what is LGM summed up!

Other than the envious collection of saris that Nadiya Moidu dons in the film, there's nothing worth watching in Dhoni's maiden film.

Verdict: Director Ramesh Thamilmani's LGM is so uninteresting and exasperating, courtesy its weak screenplay, poorly etched characters, cliches and forced humour that you soon run out of patience. Thala Dhoni deserved better!

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