At one point or the other, we would have all wondered how our lives would be better if we could go back in time and do certain things differently. That is what Mani (Santhanam) feels when he stumbles across a time machine. He has been unable to realise him dream of becoming a hockey player. And he hates his present job, as a worker in the electricity board. Worse, his married life — with Priya (Anagha), the girl of his dreams — is on the rocks.

So, in the year 2027, when he stumbles into his friend Albert (Yogi Babu), who is part of a secret group of scientists trying to invent a time machine, he jumps at the chance when the machine actually starts working. He goes back to 2020, to the day of his marriage, to try and stop it, not realising that this move is going to mess up his life even further.

Karthik Yogi, the director of Dikkiloona, certainly has the ingredients for a madcap entertainer. There is the complexity of time travel, with different timelines; there are a bunch of screwball characters — a couple of bumbling time cops, a mental asylum with its eccentric patients and doctor… But more than comedy, what we get is romantic drama that also has some comedy. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the female leads had been written well and the romance presented in a way to make us care. But here, both the heroines are written in a superficial manner. Neither Priya nor Meghna (Shirin Kanchwala) come across as fully fleshed-out characters, with their actions being portrayed as henpecking or as acting like a spoilt child. It doesn’t help that we get lines that are chauvinistic.

But the comic portions work — to an extent. Santhanam does his usual insult comedy (Chithra Lakshmanan is once again a target) and rhyming jokes, but, by now, we are so accustomed to these that what would have once generated laughs leaves us only with a smile. Still, there are some moments when he genuinely makes us guffaw – like in a scene in which he compares himself to Amala Paul in Aadai. The supporting comedians, especially Anandaraj, Munishkanth and Lollu Sabha Maran, are amusing.

It is these scenes that rescue the film and make us wonder if this material would have worked better if the director had chosen to make it as an out-and-out comedy. In its present state, it is merely diverting fare that you forget once it ends.