‘Dead Dead Full Dead’: Fantasia Review

Dir: Pratul Gaikwad. Country: India. 2024. 110mins

Pratul Gaikwad’s Dead Dead Full Dead is the latest addition to the welcome trend of low budget, high concept films emerging out of India. However, in going for broke with its story about two junior cops attempting to solve a murder, it loses its way between concept and execution. It’s a film that tries to do too much — it’s a whodunit that tries to go metaphysical, a comedy that strays into the supernatural zone, with a love story also lurking round the corner. But all of these elements fall flat.

 Loses its way between concept and execution

Dead Dead Full Dead might seem like a rather atypical Indian film, its oddity holding value for the foreign audience. That may fuel its chances of further festival play following its Fantasia premiere, and help build curiosity in the growing niche of genre audience within India, despite its obvious lack of mass appeal.

Junior copy Balraam, aka Balu (Yug Italiya) and Zubeida, aka Zubi, (Monika Chaudhary) are much in love with each other. (Dis)reputed for their inefficiency, they are not called upon to perform anything but essential tasks by their senior Patil (Abhijeet Chavan) — like watching over a goat that he intends to gift his estranged wife. They fail in executing even that responsibility, with the animal turning into an inanimate toy thanks to their ineptness and some cosmic intervention. 

Then an old lady, Basanti Bachchan (Flora Jacob), ostensibly suffering from dementia, reports the murder of her astrologer-influencer neighbour Era (Swastika Mukherjee), alleging that Era’s businessman husband Rahul (Ashwin Mushran) —who umpires in cricket and plays with paper planes—is the killer. Yet as the investigations proceed, the needle of suspicion ends up falling, among others, on Basanti herself, as well as the sinister house help Chhotu (Sachin Vidrohi) who keeps pumping dangerous cooking gas into balloons. Things get more confusing when Era returns from the afterlife to assist the investigation.

For larger Indian audience, some of the film’s elements—the lunar eclipse, wandering spirits and restless souls transcending time, occult science and the bumbling cops—might feel like a throwback to haunted house films of yore, like the Kamal Amrohi classic Mahal, and low brow, grungy cult police procedural series such as BP Singh’s CID. What Dead Dead Full Dead is unable to decide, however, is whether it wants to send up the time-honoured codes and conventions of Indian horror cinema and the cop universe, or pay homage to them. Either way, it lacks the gripping narrative of the former and the wildly entertaining spirit and fanatical fandom of the latter.

The weirdness of the eclectic cast of characters also stops short of being wonderful. Their multiple manias are not magical enough. The ensemble boasts two celebrated, competent actors (Swastika and Ashwin) but even they are unable to rise above the strain of impassivity that runs through the film.

As the plot plods on, the paranormal hangs heavy and the cops and the viewers in turn end up doing some time travelling in the name of investigation. But, by the end, there’s not enough interest in solving the mystery and finding the murderer. To add to the slog, the filmmaker also inserts some self-aware but half-baked tokenisms about class divides and pernicious influencer culture, and banal dialogue comparing life to a smoothie with flavours of hope, regrets and nostalgia. Ultimately, Dead Dead Full Dead tries hard to play for laughs, but doesn’t even manage to land a chuckle.