Dhamaal 4 Review:
A man slipping off a banana peel might be the most archaic, juvenile way to induce laughs. Dhamaal 4 has it. It also has people getting electrocuted, getting hit in the crotch, getting hit on the head, getting attacked by a tiger, a crocodile, tribals and… an octopus, and also hanging, God so much hanging, from CGI cliffs, CGI buildings and CGI hot air balloons. Remove the zany background music and the film actually seems like a Final Destination installment. Just that death only comes for our brain cells.
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Mishra, Arshad Warsi, Jaaved Jaaferi, Riteish Deshmukh, Ravi Kishan, Anjali Anand and Sanjeeda Shaikh
Directed by: Indra Kumar
Rating: 1 star
As the PR handouts will say, “the Dhamaal boys are back” (Why?). The madcap crew of Guddu (Ajay Devgn), Jonny (Sanjay Mishra), Lallan (Riteish Deshmukh), Adi (Arshad Warsi) and Manav (Jaaved Jaaferi) are at it yet again. The quest is the same old: find the treasure. It was hidden by a certain Shaitaan Singh years ago, after he looted a British ship. In a flip to the first film in the franchise, this time the gold is buried under an “M” shaped mountain. The different groups have to sail through a tempestuous sea and brave perilous forests to reach their destination. Also in the run is Ravi Kishan’s pirated version of Jack Sparrow Adhoora. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
With a script as thin as a map, Dhamaal 4 is a senseless, mind-numbing mess. Every scene ends up with people falling or things falling on them. It’s so slapstick that in spirit of the wordplay comedy this genre of films is known for, I expected people to get slapped with a stick. They do get injured but in ways as inventive as getting a dagger in their buttocks. For a film which claims to be for the whole family, this one seems like it was purely made for the kids, that too probably five-year-olds.
I especially feel bad for the women in the film. Sanjeeda Shaikh as Arshad Warsi’s love-interest exists to get injured (she gets stuck in a car trunk, hangs from a building window and has to suffer an octopus sticking on her face). Anjali Anand is there for the fat-shaming and the running joke is about her falling on Riteish Deshmukh (the makers’ idea of giving her some agency is making her fight a dwarf). The film constantly tries to sell itself to the rock-bottom denominator. When they have exhausted the physical comedy, they get on with the callbacks and the force-fitted references. A cactus plant exists on a speedboat just for a character to say Phool Aur Kaante (1991) when Ajay Devgn hurts his behind on it. If you haven’t seen the earlier Dhamaal films, don’t worry, there are countless number of times when the characters refer to something that happened in the previous installments. They think it is meta and cheeky but it all falls flat.
There have been so many discussions about the absence of romance in Hindi cinema but the fall of humour too requires a separate study. It wasn’t like we were always very sharp but the lack of effort is heartbreaking. In the early 2000s, you could clearly sense the actors improvising and elevating a substandard script. In Dhamaal 4, however, everybody just goes with the flow. I can count the number of jokes that worked for me on one hand minus the thumb. What even are jokes? The film is the setup and we are the punchline.