I'm Game review: Dulquer Salmaan has all the right cards, but the film folds

Dulquer Salmaan has had a strange couple of years. Everywhere except home, he's been on fire. Lucky Baskhar and Sita Ramam turned him into the kind of actor Telugu audiences now claim as their own. Back in Kerala, though, it's been a dry spell, and everyone knows it, including him. So when I'm Game, from RDX director Nahas Hidhayath, was announced, there was that particular hope reserved for hometown comebacks. Does it deliver? Sort of. Half a film's worth, roughly.Here's the pitch, and it's a good one: Dan John doesn't believe in luck. Betting, to him, is maths, a system he's already solved. For a while, the film lets him be right, winning big until one bet goes catastrophically wrong. A gang chase, a car crash, an arm crushed beyond saving. Enter a hand transplant, which should be the happy ending. Instead, the new hand comes with baggage: memories, perhaps a mind of its own. Dan finds himself dragged into a mess involving cricket-betting syndicates and a dead man's unfinished business.You've seen bits of this before. Body Parts did the transplant-horror thing back in 1991, while anyone who's watched Madonne Ashwin's Maaveeran will clock the tonal borrowing almost instantly, not a huge surprise given Mysskin, who plays the villain here, was in that film too. But familiarity doesn't kill the first half. Hidhayath knows how to shoot a chase, how to let an action set piece breathe, and there's a swagger to the early stretch that papers over how predictable the groundwork actually is. Hyderabad looks different here too: less of the lively, sun-lit city seen in Premalu, more shadow and grime.There is also a sly self-awareness running through the film. When Kayadu Lohar's character is introduced, a friend jokingly asks whether this is "the pan-India film", a knowing wink at Dulquer's career trajectory that lands nicely. The dialogues, credited to Adarsh Sukumaran, Shabas Rasheed and Sajeer Baba, move fluidly between English, Malayalam, Tamil and occasional Telugu without feeling forced. Even small production details, such as sponsor placements for Big Eleven and Book my ticket woven into the background, show a filmmaker paying attention to texture. Once the transplant settles in and the hand begins acting of its own accord, the film finds its most striking stretch. That sequence, elevated considerably by Chaman Chakko's editing, is genuinely unsettling and well-engineered. The heroic elevation moments, subtle hair flicks and hand gestures mid-fight rather than loud declarations, earn their whistles.Performances hold up their end too. Dulquer is convincingly mature as a man moving from arrogant gambler to someone wrestling with a limb he cannot control. Antony Varghese, in an extended cameo as Vicky, brings real emotional heft, while Kathir, Mysskin and Kayadu Lohar all do solid work, even if their characters are written thinly. Jimshi Khalid's cinematography, following his work on Thallumaala and Alappuzha Gymkhana, is once again sharp, and Jakes Bejoy's score complements the film's mood, coming alive during the action set pieces. The first half, then, is a confident blend of commercial spectacle and a genuinely intriguing idea. Even viewers unfamiliar with Body Parts or Maaveeran will likely find something fresh in it. The trouble starts after the interval. Writers Sajeer Baba, Ismail Aboobacker and Bilal Moidu have a firm hold on the first half, but the moment the film pivots into an extended flashback, that grip loosens badly. Once the identity of the donor is revealed, the eventual destination becomes obvious, and the screenplay does little to disguise it. Vicky's backstory stretches into a long, generic detour that saps momentum rather than building it.When the narrative returns to the present, there is a real opportunity to subvert the revenge template. Instead, I'm Game settles into the most familiar version of that story, with action sequences stacking up without much variation. The urgency established in the opening simply isn't there anymore.The betting-consequences subplot, potentially the film's sharpest piece of commentary, also ends up feeling like a message inserted for optics rather than something genuinely earned through the story. Had it been developed with more care, it could have given the film a sharper identity.There are moments when the Telugu commercial template seeps in so heavily that one wonders whether Dulquer's recent associations are shaping his choices. But considering those films were Mahanati, Sita Ramam and Lucky Baskhar, hardly a run of generic potboilers, that theory doesn't quite hold. This is a directorial choice, and it's an awkward one.The cliches pile up: rain accompanying a death, a villain calling a goon immediately after the hero wins a fight, and a climactic den showdown where a battered hero rises to beat everyone senseless. In an ordinary commercial film, these beats work perfectly well. Here, they feel like a compromise. I'm Game begins as a genre-bending fantasy thriller with enough ambition to go somewhere strange, only to retreat into formula when it matters most. That's ultimately what makes the film frustrating. There is talent everywhere: Dulquer's performance, Hidhayath's eye for action, Jimshi Khalid's cinematography, Chaman Chakko's editing and Jakes Bejoy's music. The pieces are clearly there. What is missing is the conviction to let the film's stranger instincts take over.I'm Game ends up caught between two versions of itself: the unsettling body-horror thriller it could have been and the standard revenge drama it eventually becomes. The first half suggests a film willing to take risks; the second seems determined to play it safe. For Dulquer, that still makes this a step in the right direction. It isn't the emphatic Malayalam comeback audiences were hoping for, but it is proof that the right ingredients are finally in the room. The frustrating part is that I'm Game never quite finds the nerve to put them together.- EndsPublished By: T Naga Maruthi AcharyaPublished On: Sep 3, 2026 15:39 IST