The story is about an innocent romantic, Alok Goyal (Ayushmann Khurrana), who after getting accidentally lost and injured in a jungle, and getting rescued by a beautiful betaal, Tadaka (Rashmika), falls in love with her. The forbidden love between a betaal and a human leads to many humourous and unintended consequences, with parents, eve-teasers, random strangers and the betaal community all in the mix. When an accident takes Alok’s life, Tadaka has no choice but to break the ultimate rule of the betaal-insaan balance (no prizes for guessing what that is!). This unleashes the evil and all powerful ex-ruler of the betaal tribe, Yakshasan (Nawazuddin). All hell breaks loose and an eventual battle of good vs. bad betaals is won by love and a happy ending, which as we know in movies like this, is a troubling beginning for the next film. Oh ya, and there’s some bhediya action in between the movie too.
First thing to get out of the way is that we need to leave behind the genius that was the original Stree film (my review here https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2018/09/stree-2018-movie-review.html). That film (which you could argue started it all), was brilliant in its vision and story-telling. It was funny, it was scary, it had a point of view, and it was fresh. After that, all the other movies (Stree 2, Bhediya, and now Thamma) are not in the same league of film-craft, but have become more in the space of mass entertainers. And nothing wrong with that at all, I say. So, to lament on what we’ve lost since the original Stree is, frankly, an unnecessary waste of time.
So, let’s pivot ourselves to seeing this film from a sheer entertainment point of view. From this lens, Stree 2 was actually quite a riot (see my review here https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2024/08/stree-2-2024-film-review.html). There was a new plot, that linked to the first one, it was funny, it was scary, it was trying to make a point of view, and it was a fun couple of hours spent. Thamma, however, doesn’t meet this low bar either.
The main fault lies in the script. It is a weak story. Apart from a broad concept of vampires, and a loose Twilight-inspired romantic plot, the story has very little unfortunately. The film meanders aimlessly between the romance of Alok and Tadaka and related adventures and mis-adventures as the human and the betaal worlds collide; the evil Yakshaasan who wants to go back to feeding on human blood and unleash a betaal-raj on the world, and a parallel side plot with Bhediya (Varun Dhawan) that is only there to desperately create the making of a new cinematic universe. After the demise of the MCU, enter H-MCU (Horror Maddock Cinematic Universe)! Alok-Tadaka-Yakshaasan story by itself is actually quite banal and blah. And further, force-fitting the bhediya angle to get the HMCU going, makes it even worse.
The problem and the most disappointing aspect of the story, is the sheer lack of depth or even an attempt to build an immersive world of myths and monsters. Just calling it an HMCU, doesn’t make it a cinematic universe. The reason why the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was so successful (and then it stopped being so) was because, underlying the super special effects, the superlative action and the super heroes, there lay a deep mythology that was anchored on characters and meaning that have history, purpose and agency. Same reason why Game of Thrones, or Lord of The Rings, or Matrix or even the Twilight series, or any other fiction like this works. Without this deep seated mythology, the story that comes out of it is just meaningless words, random scenes, irrelevant action, and blah special effects. With so much talent and creativity in our country, we lament not being able to see better imagination coming in the films, and settling for seen-before tropes of vampires, werewolves, vampires vs. werewolves, etc etc.
Noew, there are also many entertainment-driven films where a bad script is more than made up by other elements like clever or funny dialogues and moments (like say Bhool Bhulaiyya 3, see review here https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2024/11/bhool-bhulaiya-3-film-review.html), or through sheer performances of actors (like say Sitaare Zameen Par, see review here https://books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.com/2025/07/sitaare-zameen-par-movie-review-2025.html), and we still get a decent experience overall. But Thamma misses on that too. Rashmika is attractive, but that’s it. Ayushman is endearing, but its not enough. Nawazuddin is dramatic, but un-impactful. Even talented actors like Paresh Rawal, as the dad, and Geeta Sharma, as the mom, stay on the sidelines, building neither character, nor context.
Further, with neither music nor production values nor action sequences to save the day for Thamma, we just walk out of the theatres saying ‘time pass’, wondering if we really mean it, or we’re just making our post-purchase justification for a not-so-reasonably-priced movie ticket. To wrap it up, all I’d say is
Na sur hai na taal hai,
Yeh film kaafi betaal hai
