Total Dhamaal Rolls Out a Carpet of Sad Jokes & Witless Characters

Watch RJ STutee’s review of the latest film Total Dhamaal. 

(Photo: The Quint/Aroop Mishra)

Total Dhamaal is densely populated. It has Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Ajay Devgn, Riteish Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Javed Jaffrey, Boman Irani, Pitobash Tripathi, Mahesh Manjereker, Sanjay Mishra and even an Esha Gupta. There is Indra Kumar at the helm of the project and not one but three people responsible for writing the screenplay and yet apart from getting together the ensemble cast, everything else seems to be an afterthought. The one-line story about a motley group of people chasing Rs 50 crore hidden in some godforsaken zoo, brings in its wake as many inanities and absurdities as possible.

Trains, cars and helicopters crash, bridges fall, buildings are on fire and jokes well past their best-before dates are thrown at us.

Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit paired as an always bickering couple – a Gujarati husband and Marathi wife – hardly manage even a quarter of the magic they have created in their previous outings together. The same old husband-wife jokes that even the irritating uncle doesn’t send anymore on the family WhatsApp group have been dug out!

Ajay Devgn and Sanjay Mishra are miscreants on the run from Police chief (Boman Irani). A carpet of flat jokes and mundane contrivances welcome these half-baked characters. Riteish Deshmukh who is usually brilliant with his comic timing gets to be a greedy fire fighter who will do anything for money. Deshmukh is capable of so much more than what this film allows him to do. One can only endure his scenes with Johnny Lever.

Arshad Warsi and Javed Jaffery another talent duo reprise their roles as the original Adi Manav, and somehow this was the only track that kept the laughs coming by the sheer dint of their comic artistry.

The first half conjures up many improbable scenes that are supposed to be funny. Finally, en route to the zoo for the promised bounty, the post-interval story follows the predictable trajectory in the most lumbering fashion. The zoo keeper is Esha Gupta. So smitten is Ajay Devgn with her that he starts chomping at the bush he is hiding behind, till Sanjay Mishra says “focus bro focus”. This was painful to watch!

The zoo animals made up of low budget CGI and special effects are supposed to do what the humans so far failed to do – get us to care about the on-screen proceedings . Mahesh Manjereker makes an entry as the villain who wants to grab the zoo land. Somewhere someone else breaks up the word “jaanvar” for us – “Aap toh inki jaan ho bas ab inhe apna var maan lo!”

Crystal the monkey has a couple of scenes till everyone is too tired to move and the end credits roll along with a song that adds little value to anything.

This is the same film which has Sonakshi Sinha’s utterly unnecessary item song and a rehashed version of Paisa Paisa! The music, also an afterthought!

Total Dhamaal is not as bad as the trailer, it’s worse – because the trailer was just for a few minutes and this one goes on for a couple of hours! Like the characters in the movie, the makers too, are eager to do anything for the ‘karoron ka business’. I don’t know the box office collection but if you value your time and money – you might want to sit this one out!

1 Quint out of 5!