Dhamaal

After months and months of flops being released, this is one movie that has lived by its title, "Dhamaal," which means chaos, trouble.

Three men, Aditya Shrivastav, Manav Shrivastav and Deshbandhu Roy are thrown out of their rented house after failing to pay rent for several months and find themselves homeless as they are not employed. They try to survive by stealing portraits but even this fails and they get caught and are soon joined by their friend, Boman Contractor, who like them, has no job and has left home. However, his father, is wealthy but only cares about his antique car. Boman decides to go against his father's wishes and steals the car and the four of them head towards Goa. Enroute the collide with another car, whose driver dies but not before informing them about some hidden money. Unknown to the four men, a certain Police Inspector Kabir Nayak has been chasing the dead man and Boman Contractor's father has found out that his beloved antique car has been stolen by his son.

The movie stars Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi (both of them known for their roles in "Munnabhai M.B.B.S" and "Laage Raho Munnabhai"), Riteish Deshmukh, Ashish Choudhary and Asrani. A special appearance is made by the legendary villain, Prem Chopra. The movie has no female actress accept for one, who make a brief appearance at the beginning as the landlady. The director, Indra Kumar, has done an excellent job of this out and out comedy movie and is worthwhile watching it with your family.

Does anyone remember the movie, "Its A Mad Mad World?"

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!

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.

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).

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.