Dumm Dumm Dumm opened on 13 April 2001 to positive reviews and became a commercial hit.[2]
The film depicts two career-oriented young people being pressured into an arranged marriage by their respective families. To their own surprise, they get along well and are attracted to each other. Their wedding is cancelled due to a violent quarrel between their families over cheating at a card game. The would-be-couple make efforts to reunite.
Plot
Ganga lives in a small village in Thenkasi district of Tamil Nadu and yet secures state second rank in XII board exams. Although she wishes to pursue civil engineering, her father Veluthambi plans to get her married to young Lawyer Adhithya aka Adhi, who also hails from the same village. The reason for this alliance is that Adhi's rich dad was Veluthambi's former boss who helped him become a rich rice mill owner, and Velu wants to repay the moral debt. Adhi is a fun-loving person who has just completed his law degree and prefers to enjoy his bachelor life and is not interested in marriage.
Adhi comes to the village and meets Ganga trying to convey his feelings. To his surprise, Ganga is also not interested in marriage as she wants to study in Chennai. Both of them decide to somehow stop the wedding by creating some problem before the wedding, but all their efforts go in vain as both the families get even closer following their plans.
Slowly, Adhi and Ganga start liking each other and decide to get married. However, to their shock, on the day before the wedding, a small quarrel erupts between Veluthambi and Adhi's father while playing cards. Adhi's father accuses Veluthambi of cheating during the game, which was actually done by Adhi's relative Dr Kathamuthu. Veluthambi retaliates to prove his genuineness. The argument, which started in a funnier tone, gets serious slowly, and immediately, both of the families decide to get the wedding cancelled and in the tussle, Adhi's house servant is stabbed. Ganga's brother-in-law, a government school PT teacher, is blamed for the incident and is arrested.
Ganga is sent to Chennai to pursue engineering and stays with her paternal uncle Sivaji, who is a leading lawyer by profession. Adhi, who also lives in Chennai, meets Ganga, and they both now plan to get the cancelled wedding re-arranged again by their families. Adhi comes in place of his friend Jim as a junior lawyer to assist Sivaji, thereby meeting Ganga every day. Sivaji finds that Adhi has not come as a junior and instead for some other reason. However, he misunderstands that Adhi is in love with his own daughter and fears that his daughter might elope with Adhi someday. Adhi appears as lawyer for Veluthambi's son-in-law, and saves him based on lack of evidence.
Finally, Adhi's father understands that Veluthambi was innocent and apologizes to him. Adhi and Ganga are happily united in the end.
Mani Ratnam chose his assistant Azhagam Perumal to direct a film for his production studio, Madras Talkies in late 2000 and the pair worked on a screenplay together. Azhagam Perumal had earlier begun two projects, Mudhal Mudhalaaga in 1998 and Udhaya in 1998, but both films ran into production troubles, so his mentor Mani Ratnam was keen to launch him as a director. The basic plotline of the film was taken from the episode Love Story from Suhasini's 1991 miniseries Penn.[3] While Mani Ratnam worked on writing the film's city portions, Azhagam Perumal wrote the portions set in the village.[4]R. Madhavan, who played the lead role in Mani Ratnam's previous project Alaipayuthey (2000), was signed on to play the lead role alongside actress Jyothika.[5] It was initially reported that Madras Talkies had signed on composer Dhina to work on the film's soundtrack, but he was later replaced by Karthik Raja.[6][7]
A song sequence was shot at Thanjavur Periya Koil and became the final film to shoot there until Kandaen released in 2011.[8][9] The film had a premiere on 13 April 2001 at Sathyam Cinemas in aid of the Ability Foundation, an organisation working for the welfare of the disabled.[10]
The soundtrack features six songs composed by Karthik Raja.[11] The lyrics were penned by Vaali, Pa. Vijay and Na. Muthukumar. Indiainfo wrote "Once again the album does justice to the film producer Manirathnam whose music sense has always been above par. Kaarthik Raja is a talented son of a talented father".[12]
Upon release on 13 April 2001, Dumm Dumm Dumm garnered predominantly positive feedback from critics. Chennai Online wrote "It is a youthful, clean entertainer from debutant director Azhagam Perumal. The film begins a little differently, the first part interspersed with enjoyable humour. Some of the scenes and song picturisation (like, 'Deising Raja….', the catchy tunes by Kartik Raja) have the Manirathnam touch. Not surprising, since the director has had his apprenticeship with Manirathnam. It is after the story shifts to the city that the narration lags a little and becomes confused".[13] The critic from Rediff.com cited that the film "has what it takes to come up with a box office bonanza" and said that "the real star, though, is director Azhagam Perumal."[14] Furthermore, the reviewer praised R. Madhavan and Jyothika, the lead pair, as "perfectly cast, and perform as per expectations," whilst labeling that Murali delivered a "measured performance." The Hindu's verdict was that the film was "a neat entertainer that seems to lose focus on and off," whilst drawing particular praise for the performance of the leading actors.[15]New Straits Times wrote "Dumm Dumm Dumm is a surprisingly good effort from a new director and one suspects Maniratnam had a close hand in guiding him".[16] Likewise, a reviewer from Screen noted "Azhagam Perumal has shown a good grasp of the medium and the ability to finely blend the rustic charm and city slickness in a love story extracting fine performance from the lead pair, Madhavan and Jyothika."[17]Cinesouth wrote "The tempo of the film has been maintained throughout as Selvaraj, Manirathnam and Alagam perumal have combined their brainwork very efficiently with regard to story, screenplay and direction. But more care could have been given to the final scenes. The Cinematography by Ramji and the edit by Sridhar Prasad are commendable."[18] Visual Dasan of Kalki praised the performances of Madhavan, Jyothika and other actors and also praised the director for directing the film well.[19]Indiainfo wrote "The film has not much of a storyline but the director scores in the screenplay and makes an impact extracting good performances from the artistes. Karthik Raaja's music, Ramji's camera and good choreography add to the film's entertainment value".[20]
The film went on to become a commercially successful venture at the box office.[21] Subsequently, the film was later dubbed and released in Telugu as Dum Dum Dum.[22] It subsequently was awarded with several Cinema Express Awards and was the most awarded film at the award function with Karthik Raja winning Best Tamil Music Director Award for his work.[23]
