Dhamaal

Dhamaal is an amazing and very funny story of four ordinary university dropouts and unemployed men formed their own group of con artists, carrying out theft and other illegal activities to get money. It's truly crazy and a laughing riot. With Director Indra Kumar weaving in new characters, unexpected plots and twists and turns, making it truly come ducal and putting a smile on the faces of the audience although some parts including the plot of the film are based on Rat Race, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Mr. Bean (the British TV Series and it's feature film in 1997). However, the ending of the film where the 6 men arrive at a Help Orphan Children Organization charity, the comedy is drained out but Director Kumar manages to refill the gaps with comedy when Kabir is interrogated by his boss again and the end song and dance as the credits roll. Watch this if you are feeling lonely, bored or down. As the name suggests, the film does do it's best to make you laugh. It did truly tickle my funny bone and drew a smile on me several times. Basically, this is what a comedy/drama film is meant to be! Arshad, Aashish, Ritesh and Javed truly shine as these four lovable and funny idiots with Sanjay Dutt and Asrani doing a spectacular performance, playing tough and strict but still funny men.

'Dhamaal' is a mad, zany, silly but truly hilarious comedy film, that hasn't lost its touch even after nearly a decade since its release. I have seen this cult-classic many times & the film only gets funnier each time I re-watch it.

'Dhamaal' Synopsis: Four good-for-nothing companions & a corrupt cop embark on a journey to find a hidden treasure in Goa.

Heavily inspired by the all-time hit It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 'Dhamaal' offers genuine laughs & tickles your funny bone all through. The characters & their journey as one, is definitely silly, but the sequences are so hilarious, that you are on the floor laughing! The gags, one after the other, are so funnily written, that its impossible not to laugh.

Bunty Rathod's Screenplay borrows heavily from the above-mentioned film, but it works entirely. A special mention for the crackling dialogue. Indra Kumar's Direction is good. He deserves kudos for not letting the pace drop at any given time. Cinematography & Editing are fair. Music by Adnan Sami is excellent.

'Dhamaal' works because of its terrific casting. Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aashish Chaudhary & Jaaved Jaffrey are a riot! Their on-screen chemistry as well as their comic timing, is masterful. Jaffrey, especially, is top-notch. Sanjay Dutt is his usual self. Asrani brings the house down. He's another topper! Vijay Raaz, Suhasini Mulay, Sanjay Mishra, Manoj Pahwa & The Late/Great Vinay Apte are superb in bit roles.

On the whole, Wanna laugh-out-loud? Watch 'Dhamaal'. Its pure fun!

Dhamaal is an entertaining movie. However, one can't shake off the fact that the movies LIFTS scenes and story lines from AROUND 5-6 Hollywood MOVIES, right from the first scene.

First scene is a rip-off of Johnny English, the third scene is copied from one of Mr.Bean's episodes. The whole damn storyline is EXACTLY IDENTICAL to 'Its a Mad Mad World' and 'Rat Race'. Later one, the movie lifts the bridge scene from 'Road Trip', the tiger roar scene is from a movie called Without A Paddle, and the whole soap gun scene is from 'Small Time Crooks'. On many occasions, it is also inspired by Starsky and Hutch.

UPDATE - Just watched 'Dude, Wheres my car?' and the pizza scene is copied directly from there.

However, the second half is where we see some originality, and ironically, the most original scenes are the most entertaining. The movie goes for a clichéd ending, however, which is a downer.

THE GOOD

• Great performances from the cast, especially Arshad Warsi, Ritesh, and Jaffrey.

• Some very entertaining original parts, especially in the second half.

THE BAD

• You won't have much fun if you have watched the above-mentioned movies.

• Some jokes, like the airplane one and the cliffhanging one, are stretched to a point where they are not funny anymore.

• Not so great music.

• Disappointing ending.

Overall, Dhamaal is a decent entertainer, but stumbles badly on originality, as the copied jokes have been done much better in the original movies.

Indra Kumar may never have made cinematic masterpieces but has always delivered good stellar, albeit very inspired entertainment.

However something made me feel that this movie may in fact not be inspired, because buffoonery a staple of Bollywood comedies since the 90's, is in fact "Very 90's and before that Very 60's" in Hollywood, there there have been the odd movie of this genre in recent years but those have all been copied thanks to one great man Mr. Neeraj Vohra(in partnership with Priyadarshan off course), I cant wait to see which movies hes plundered in his latest venture.

BUT the fact is I hoped and felt this movie was original, BUT for a long time since i can remember I WAS WRONG.

So wrong in fact that 15 mins into this movie i knew almost exactly the movies the major jokes in this movie, THIS MOVIE FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES IS A PERFECT MIXTURE OF 2 MOVIES ITS A MAD MAD MAD WORLD (1963) AND RAT RACE(2001), the STORY MORE FROM ITS A MAD.. WHILE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS AND SEQUENCES ARE FROM RAT RACE probably because entire sequences have been lifted from its A Mad... by Neeraj Vohra in the past (Bhagam Bhag), and they needed enough content to fill in the spaces.

When i realised this i started the normal routine of lamenting my fate, and the quality of the Hindi movie industry,(HEHE screw driver up the bums so funny), when were we ever going to have an original movie here, is it my fault that I've seen so many good English movies,(the stereotypical Bawa who loves his old car haha) THEY EVEN IMPRESSED ME BY HAVING VERY FEW DIALOGUES IN English AND HAVING THE STARTING CREDITS IN Hindi, don't tell me they've copied the scene down to the kick the bucket joke, how many people who speak even English know that (Ritiesh Deshmukh is hilarious hehhoohoho), blah blah blah.....

THEN THE OTHER BUT HIT ME......

BUT....

EVEN THOUGH I KNOW ALMOST ALL THE MAJOR GAGS IM STILL LAUGHIN Aren't I.

Somewhere along the line in the attempt at Indianizing the story and the script, this movie added something new to otherwise predictable blend, much like what we Indians did to Chinese food, its like to take Chinese recipes of Manchurian and noodles, cook it Indian style add masala and what not, then when you mix the two it doesn't merely taste like Manchurian plus noodles but something else.

And so i laughed, and laughed and laughed, the JOKES ARE VERY VERYT CHILDISH mind you and if you don't have the appetite for childish humour then this movie is not for you, a bunch of us friends loved it, but when my parents went for this movie despite me warning them in advance they found the movie toooo childish.

The acting is superb, everyone has put really fine inspired performances, again with an Indian twist to everything, SANJAY DUTT WAS COMPLETELY OFF COLOUR, (maybe his impending jail stint had something to do with it, and GOD WILLING THE LAW WILL PREVAIL AND HE SHALL SOON BE BACK THERE AGAIN).Still his bad performance was very very noticeable and a slight dampener.AFTER CASH AND HEY BABY RITIESH HAS GAINED BACK SOME RESPECT.

THE SONGS WERE CRAP TO PUT IT MILDLY AND BADLY USED WITH 2 OF THEM IN QUICK SUCCESSION IN THE BEGINNING.Luckily thanks to large amount of content (the original IAMMMMW was 3 hrs and RR was 2 hours) there were no more songs in this film.

Technically this movie was OK with some special effects and sound effect used effectively, writing directing was OK given the fact that this movie was completely inspired.

By the end of it this turned out to be a very entertaining movie for me despite its huge shortcomings.

ONCE AGAIN I WOULD LIKE TO WARN YOU THAT THIS MOVIE Isn't FOR EVERYBODY, its very childish (not a single adult joke), everyone is a buffoon, AS PROMISED there is no romantic track etc etc. Its utter and complete stupidity and if thats not your taste then this movie is not for you.

If however you do like such movies, haven't seen the originals, or are willing to overlook its blatant plagiarism, THEN GO AHEAD AUR KAR LO DHAMAAL.

-s blatant plagiarism, some jokes to stupid to be funny, pathetic songs.

+/-s the interval was needed for me (its not easy seeing so much stupidity at one go), SANJAY DUTT (I KNOW HE MADE A MISTAKE BUT WHEN YOU MAKE MISTAKES Aren't YOU SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR THEM).

+S great inspired acting all around, good technically (again credit to the originals), lots of hilarious jokes some with a very Indian soul.

total 6/10 (any movie thats so blatantly copied deserves no better, i really enjoyed myself but i assure you it wont be the same for everyone, despite the fact that i enjoyed i still pray and hope for something original to come out of bollywood).

The movie has really come out as a nice surprise. I watched it expecting it to be very stupid and rubbish comedy like 'Dhol' or 'Tom. Dick and Harry'. I even was not having any intention of watching this movie, as I know what to expect from such movies. My roommate bought this movie and then I watched it with him. And we both like it. In fact we were both rofling while watching and saying, "Kya Bakwaas Chal Raha Hain".

We were involved so much that only at the last scene we realized that the movie theme is copied from rat race. I again watched the movie after one month back at my home.

Yes, the movie is full of stupid unrealistic scenarios and characters. The movie is also copied from not one but multiple Hollywood films. But the touch that they have given from Indian audience and the decent acting from lead characters made this movie worth watching. Even though all the jokes are very old age, due to the way they are presented and the way they occur we want to laugh at them.

When the movie has many characters normally we see that character building itself takes a lot of time and then each character did not get enough scope on screen. But fortunately in this movie each one gets its share time to develop and present themselves. Due to this there is restriction on scope of each character and hence the actors doing those do not have any problems performing them. That is why even without any big names behind (except Sanjay Dutt) the movie has done some good at box office.

The movie is flows with constant pace. Nowhere we find it going slow (except for the plane scene may be) or going fast. Also absence of songs I will treat as a positive point.

The other important aspect is not having any female actor. In todays Bollywood era, where an item song is a must in a movie doing such a daring is admirable.

This is the kind of you will like to watch and forget, but if you get another chance you will watch it again. At least I will.