Ombatthane Dikku preview: All you need to know about Dayal Padmanabhan’s next with Yogi and Aditi

Filmmaker Dayal Padmanabhan has been trying to get his next, Ombatthane Dikku in theatres for a while. In fact, he had earlier announced December 31, 2021, but had to reconsider, after three other films, Love You Rachchu, Huttuhabbada Subhashayagalu and Arjun Gowda, also zeroed in on the same date, causing a paucity of screens for Dayal’s movie. Choosing to pull out of the year-end race, Dayal pushed Ombatthane Dikku ahead to January 28, 2022, but shortly after, there was a spike in Covid cases again, across the country and in Karnataka, with the state government quickly introducing night and weekend curfews in an effort to stem the spread.

While the January 21 releases, Ek Love Ya and Garuda, have been postponed, Dayal has not made any such announcement, even though weekend curfews are currently on till the end of the month and rumours of a possible lockdown in early February are doing the rounds. During weekdays, theatre occupancy is limited to 50% only, and while the first weekend curfew saw no theatres functional, Dayal has been requesting the government to allow them to operate on weekends too, given that events with maximum capacity of 200 people are being allowed, while industries have been exempted from the restriction.

What is Ombatthane Dikku about

Ombatthane Dikku is a film that Dayal has made based on an adapted screenplay. “This is a fantastic crime thriller, narrated in non-linear manner, based on an adapted screenplay that I got the rights for. There is an emotional family element in the tale, as well as a totally unexpected climax. It’s quite an unpredictable story, in which a bag becomes more important to the narrative than the hero himself. And that is exactly what comes across in the trailer, as everyone is after a duffel bag that’s conspicuous because of the compass markings on it. I would sum up Ombatthane Dikku as a suspense thriller that will appeal to family audiences, as there is no bloodshed, violence or sex,” Dayal had told us earlier.

The trailer opens with an announcement of a temple idol worth well over Rs 5 crore going missing, so, naturally the assumption is that the bag, perhaps, contains the stolen item.

Who is in the film?

Ombatthane Dikku has Loose Mada Yogi and Aditi Prabhudeva in the lead. This is Aditi’s second film with Dayal after their previous collaboration, Ranganayaki. Sampath Kumar, Sai Kumar, Ashok, Ramesh Bhat, Prashant Siddhi and the late Rockline Sudhakar are also a part of the ensemble cast.

What is the adapted screenplay that Ombatthane Dikku is based on?

Although the makers have not made any public announcement about the source material for the film, after the trailer came out, fans began speculating that it is the Kannada remake of the 2017 Tamil film, Kurangu Bommai. The crime thriller, written and directed by Nithilan Swaminathan, had music by B Ajaneesh Loknath and received positive critic feedback. Starring Vidharth, Bharatiraja, Delna Davis, PL Thenappan and Elango Kumaravel, among others, Kurangu Bommai revolves around the smuggling of expensive idols and artifacts and how one such bag goes missing in transit. The film then follows a non-linear narrative as several characters trace the route map of the bag and its contents.