Dhamaal

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.

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.

Since a great cinematic action comedy named (It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) was made in (1963) the world had gone real mad about it.

There is almost a version every decade. American different treatments like (Scavenger Hunt) in (1979), (Million Dollar Mystery) in (1987), an Egyptian one (Maganeen ala El-Tareek) in (1991), an American remake (Rat Race) in (2001), then – in the same decade – why not an Indian one too (Dhamaal – 2007).

(Dhamaal) is simply an explicit remake of (Rat Race – 2001) yet with slight touches from the original (Mad..) and even slighter Indian touches as well!

It's a nice comedy. So colorful but so painful in the same time since it assures the insolvency of the Indian cinema with countless stolen scripts yearly and mainly from the American cinema (I don't believe that "Paritosh Painter" is the writer of Dhamaal's story as the credits said !).

Sanjay Dutt looked lovable in this. In fact the whole cast looked the same. But the movie itself can be that if only you didn't watch its American original movies first.

It's a crisis of not too many new ideas, hitting the entire world including the American cinema by the way. You can feel it with the more commercial production of many cinemas.

..Though, I'm just asking: when will it be for the American cinema to remake Indian movies ?! And I'm not blaming the Americans if you know what I mean!

Inder Kumar's Dhamaal,is on of the cleanest and funniest movies to come out in Bollywood.

Nowadays,we hardly get to see squeaky clean comedy movies.

Dhamaal is a little gem which deserves a watch.This movie was not promoted heavily but soon gain popularity among people and became a super hit at box-office.

Direction by Inder Kumar is very good.

Dialogs are very good.

Performance wise-Javed Jaffery tops with an enthralling performance.Ritesh Deshmukh is very good.Ditto for Arshad Warsi and Ashish Chaudhary.Sanjay Dutt too is excellent.Asrani and Sanjay Mishra are hilarious.Prem Chopra is good in a brief role.

Overall Dhamaal deserves more than once viewing because it is one of those comedies which we hardly get.

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).