'Total Dhamaal' review: This Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit-Nene starrer is mindless but funny

Movie: Total Dhamaal 

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit-Nene, Riteish Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Jaaved Jaaferi, Boman Irani

Direction: Indra Kumar 

Written by: Ved Prakash, Paritosh Painter and Bunty Rathore 

Genre: Comedy, Adventure

Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes 

Language: Hindi (U) 

Story:

This is Bollywood's third instalment of a copy-cat version of the  Hollywood film, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), where some unscrupulous sorts chase a bunch of loot. While the first two Dhamaals had less star-power, for this third one, the makers have roped in the heft of Radhe (Ajay) with two stalwarts, Bindu (Madhuri) and Avinash (Anil). The regulars Lallan (Riteish) and brothers, Adi (Arshad) and Maanav (Javed) also show up in the gag fest. Borrowing liberally from various lesser known Hollywood films, this twisted adventure takes the various characters on a wild-goose chase. The booty of Rs 50 cr is hidden deep in a Janakpur zoo. Needless to say in the climax, men are reduced to monkeys.

Review:

This is our desi, lowbrow comedy, not to be taken seriously. Frankly, the premise is greed and of course, nothing even remotely intelligent is expected from here. Once you adjust to that, you will find yourself laughing at a lot of stupid gags that keep flowing out of the Indra Kumar factory. Never one to have claimed that he is peddling anything but stupidity, the filmmaker, who is the dyed-in-the-wool Hindi mainstream sort, continues to keep churning out potboilers. No attention is paid to the screenplay and the dialogue is pedestrian; the WhatsApp sort of forwards, which your enemies forward. But in all fairness, some of the jokes do have you laughing out loud. It's the kind of reaction that comes involuntarily when you watch a bunch of good actors doing crazy things just to keep you amused. 

Ajay, Anil and Madhuri are either torn between helpless expressions and loud reactions. But if you find The Kapil Sharma Show funny,  you will agree that these actors have definitely raised the bar on that count. Riteish has the ghost of Shatrughan Sinha sitting deep inside him, so he walks and talks with the Bihari twang. The actor has done this to death and should immediately stop. Arshad and Jaaved are perhaps the funniest because they are pros at gags. As for  Sanjay Mishra, Pritobash, Mahesh Manjrekar and Esha Gupta (credited with a special appearance), they should neither be seen nor heard. 

Indra Kumar just blew a golden opportunity to redeem himself. He had Bollywood's A-listers giving him a chance to showcase something new. Instead, he is still stuck in the groove with caricatures (one Gujarati, one Maharashtrian, a couple of South-Indians, a Bengali); you know the drill. Ridiculing accents and as we said earlier, making monkeys out of men, is an art well-perfected by a segment in Bollywood. Mind you, these movies rake in moolah because the price of the ticket feels small when compared to the price of some people's boredom. 

Incidentally, the pace of the first half is terrific. Before the innumerable characters are introduced and the first stone of the plot is laid, it is the intermission. The second half is tiresome. It depends completely on their buffoonery and you overdose on it. The climax in the zoo is also a bit long-drawn, but if you go inside the movie hall with the innocence and intellect of a six-year-old, you may feel happy. Your child-like resilience will see you through this 'fun' caper. 

Verdict:

If you're in the mood to laugh-out-loud, give this one a try. But be warned, laughter comes with a price!

Critic’s Rating: 2.5/5