Total Dhamaal Movie Review: Mindless And Mundane

Indra Kumar is back with the third edition of his Dhamaal franchise and while Dhamaal had the audiences rolling on the floor laughing, Total Dhamaal is bound to give them a headache.

Total Dhamaal Trailer

Like the original, this one too has the lead actors in search of a booty of Rs. 50 crore, which is hidden under an ‘OK’ at Jankapur’s zoo. Ajay Devgn and Sanjay Mishra are a team of crooks, Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor are playing a bickering couple, Arshad Warsi and Javed Jaffery are reprising their roles as siblings Adi and Manav, from the original, and the last team comprises, Ritesh Deshmukh and Pitobash Tripathi, who are both playing greedy firefighters.

Total Dhamaal Trailer

After much deliberation, they decide that whoever will reach Janakpur first will take the entire amount. Who reaches Janakpur first and will they be able to find the treasure, forms the rest of the plot. The film’s story is all about these different teams trying to reach Janakpur first, by hook or by crook. They have to face a lot of life-threatening difficulties on their way to Janakpur and while the makers felt that the audiences would find it funny, you just sit there with a straight face as both, the dialogues as well as the situations fail to tickle the audience’s funny bone.

Total Dhamaal Trailer

The film has an amazing starcast but despite that it falls flat. None of the actors have been able to deliver and the film’s writer-director Indra Kumar is to be blamed for that as he has neither written a great story nor has he been able to extract great performances from his actors.

Everybody has overacted their hearts out. Arshad and Javed are good but the script is so bad that they also couldn’t do much. The entire movie is very disjointed, scenes are randomly placed and it’s very banal. Ritesh is playing a Bihari and I feel that he believes that putting a ‘bey’ at the end of every sentence is what speaking Bhojpuri is all about.

Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor’s divorce scene will remind you of Kangana Ranaut and R. Madhavan’s mental asylum sequence from Tanu Weds Manu Returns as it is totally lifted from there. In fact, it seems that Madhuri took inspiration from Kangy from for that scene, as their expressions too are very similar.

Screenplay writers have done a pathetic job and they took their audiences too much for granted. It’s sad that the makers of Bollywood comedies still believe that chaotic situations automatically become hilarious. It’s high time they understand that that’s not the case.

Paisa Paisa Song From Total Dhamaal

Boman Irani, Johnny Lever, Mahesh Manjrekar and Esha Gupta are also a part of the film’s ensemble cast and while the rest of the actors are good, Esha is terrible. Thankfully, she doesn’t have much to do in the movie, Hollywood’s animal artiste, Crystal is also playing a key role in the movie and she’s totes adorbs. It’s really sad to see such acclaimed actors like Ajay, Madhuri, Sanjay and Anil making complete fools out of themselves by participating in this buffoonery. All the jokes fall flat and the whole film is tedious.

CGI and VFX are bad and despite this, the computer generated wild animals impress more than the lead cast. A few people were laughing in the theatre and I am still wondering what were they finding so amusing about this shamelessly mindless comedy.

The songs have been placed just for the heck of it and we want to request Sonakshi Sinha to leave Helen’s songs alone. Cinematography is strictly okay, screenplay is pathetic and background score is too loud. Watch this film only if you have too much money and time to waste.