Dumm Dumm Dumm

Plot

Ganga (Jyothika) lives in a village and secures state second rank in XII board exams. Although she wishes to pursue engineering, her father Veluthambi (Murali) plans to get her married to Adhithya aka Adhi (Madhavan) who also hails from the same village. 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 also is not interested in marriage as she wants to study engineering. Both of them decide to somehow stop the wedding by creating some problem before the wedding but all their effors 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. But to their shock, on the day before wedding, a small quarrel erupts between Veluthambi and Adhi’s father (Delhi Kumar) while playing cards. Adhi’s father accuses Veluthambi of cheating during the game which was actually done by Adhi’s relative (M.S.Bhaskar). 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.

Ganga is sent to Chennai to pursue engineering and she stays with her uncle Sivaji (Manivannan) who is a lawyer by profession. Adhi who also lives in Chennai meets Ganga and they both now plan to get the cancelled wedding arranged again by their families. Adhi comes in place of his friend Jim (Vivek) as a junior lawyer to assist Sivaji thereby meeting Ganga everyday. Sivaji finds that Adhi has not come as a junior and instead for some other reason. But he misunderstands that Adhi is in love with his own daughter and fears that his daughter might elope with Adhi someday.

Finally, Adhi’s father understands that Veluthambi has not done any mistake and apologizes to him. Adhai and Ganga is united in the end.

Production

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 1999, but both films ran into production troubles, so his mentor Mani Ratnam was keen to launch him as a director. While Mani Ratnam worked on writing the film's city portions, Azhagam Perumal wrote the portions set in the village. 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. 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. A song sequence was shot at Thanjavur Periya Koil and became the final film to shoot there until Kandaen released in 2011. 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.

Release

Upon release, Dumm Dumm Dumm garnered predominantly positive feedback from critics. 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." Furthermore, the reviewer praised 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.

The film went on to become a commercially successful venture at the box office. Subsequently, the film was later dubbed and released in the Telugu language as Dum Dum Dum. 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.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features six songs composed by Karthik Raja.