Madhavan’s OTT Reality Check: Dhurandhar Benefit Wasted?

GDN gets mixed response on Netflix

Madhavan’s GDN directed by Krishnakumar Ramakumar was released in theatres on August 7th and has received mixed responses from audiences and critics.

Even though Madhavan returned with this film after the massive success of the Dhurandhar franchise, GDN didn’t have good pre-release hype and the makers of the film didn’t promote it well either. Consequently, due to mixed word of mouth, GDN went unnoticed and ended its theatrical run as a failure.

Following its disastrous theatrical run, GDN started streaming on the Netflix OTT platform with a four-week OTT window on September 4th in five languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi.

Since some theatrical viewers praised the film, noting that GDN has a lot of unknown information about GDN and appreciating Madhavan for his performance, some people expected that GDN would emerge as a successful venture on OTT, claiming the film would find its target audience there.

However, surprisingly, OTT audiences are also sharing negative responses to the film, suggesting that even though it contained a lot of unknown information about the late GDN, the hurried narration caused the film to fail at holding emotions, making it feel more like a documentary drama than a proper movie.

They also suggest that the film felt artificial and that the second half dragged. Due to these drawbacks, they claim GDN didn’t land well and ended up as a below-average film.

Ultimately, with the negative responses from the audience, it remains to be seen how GDN will perform on the platform and whether it will acquire a decent number of views in the coming days.