An extroverted heroine with an inclination to cuss with abandon and the ability to talk nineteen (hundred) to the dozen. A docile hero, the exact opposite of her. And the pair caught up in chaos during the course of one night. This could well be the first hour of Jab We Met. But the dark and quiet galiyaan of Ratlam have given way to the cacophonic roads of Mumbai. The pair here — unlike Geet and Aditya in Imtiaz Ali’s romantic comedy for the ages — are married. This is Dhoom Dhaam.

The title is a smart play on the festivities associated with a wedding. After all, ‘dhoom dhoom se shaadi karenge’ is as old as Bollywood itself. But in Dhoom Dhoom, now playing on Netflix, ‘dhoom dhaam’ alludes to the fireworks that follow. What can be more deadly than marriage? Well, a bride and groom on the run on their wedding night, pursued by a gang of goons who are convinced that the newly-married couple are in possession of a key piece of incriminating evidence. Except that they aren’t.

That plot point, in itself, should have given rise to a comedy of errors, a joyride that the audience should have been all to happy to jump right into because the couple at the centre is played by Yami Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi, two actors who have proved their mettle in a variety of roles. But Dhoom Dhaam — despite all the whack, thwack, dhoom, dhaam — just doesn’t hit the high notes.

It’s all there. A thriller imbued with comedy, romance and drama. But something is amiss. Primarily because Dhoom Dhaam, directed by Rishab Seth and co-written by Uri maker Aditya Dhar, seems too much of a ticking-the-boxes exercise. The situations are predictable, the moments between the lead pair don’t have enough spark and scenes seem to have been written in too much of a force-fit manner. Like the woke, bindaas heroine delivering a lecture to her husband about how Indian women get a raw deal in life and hence have no option but to act out; the introverted husband, a few scenes and a couple of chases later, having his moment to channel empathy (or sympathy) by talking about how he has suffered all his life for his various phobias. A few scenes later, he forgets them all when he has to strip and do a pole dance in front of hundreds of screaming women. And then, of course, is the free-for-all Priyadarshan-styled climax where punches and punchlines are thrown around in equal measure with the hope that something will stick. Very little, unfortunately, does.