Total Madness
Film: Total Dhamaal
Release: 22.02.2019
Director: Indra Kumar
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Ritesh Deshmukh, Boman Irani
After Dhamaal in 2007 and Double Dhamaal in 2011 director Indra Kumar presents the third of his Dhamaal franchise as Total Dhamaal.
The first half of the film concentrates on establishing the 10 players who are introduced to us in 5 pairs.
Pair No 1: Radhe/ Ajay Devgan – Johnny/ Sanjay Mishra who have dreams of making it big in life and are ready to court big risks for big money. They plan the ambitious robbery and are almost successful in their mission but are betrayed at the last minute by their disloyal chauffer.
Pair No 2: Avinash Patel/ Anil Kapoor and his Maharashtrian wife Bindu/ Madhuri Dixit who have just emerged from the Divorce Court but agree to flirt with adventure before breaking the news of their separation to their only son at the boarding school.
Pair No 3: Adi/ Arshad Warsi and his bro Manav/ Javed Jaffery who are so clumsy that they have to just stumble into a venue and break everything into pieces be it expensive arte-facts in a gallery or a super stylish car.
Pair No 4: Lallan/ Ritesh Deshmukh and his lackey who travel in a jeep strung with brass bells and are so spineless that they can do anything/ anywhere/ anytime for money.
Pair No 5: Don/ Police Commissioner Boman Irani who is in the habit of looking back always and getting trapped, while his assistant always looks ahead and saves his skin.
The 10 characters have their individual tracks laced with crazy situations and dialogues. They are all forever embroiled in impossible situations and encounter exasperating characters be it a nariyal wala or an engine wala.
All the characters come together for the first time just before the interval, on a desolate highway to save a dying man! Post interval the film focuses on the chase for 50 crores stacked in a secret place at the zoo of Janakpur.
Their journey to this destination is filled with unimagined calamities but like superheroes, they are on top of every situation.
So Ajay Devgan who is misled by a hilarious IPS of a stolen car is stuck on top of a hill but makes it to Janakpur via a diving helicopter. Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit dare to drive through a small stream and get caught in a cyclone. Their mid sea crisis, believe it or not is resolved by Lord Shrinathji.
Boman Irani gets trapped inside a tunnel, Arshad Warsi with Javed Jaffery is lost in a desert and Ritesh Deshmukh with Johnny Lever struggle for life stuck inside rusted, rickety helicopter mid-air.
Despite grave obstacles, all the characters manage to reach the zoo on time before the climax and since all of them have exhausted their bag of crazy tricks, the director now depends on the animals to entertain us.
We discover that the zoo security is a Chimpanzee; the Guerilla here is more emotional than Nirupa Roy and the baby and mother elephants friendlier than Rajesh Khanna’s Haathi Mere Saathi. The Lion here is named Simmba and Anil Kapoor believe it or not converses with the Tiger in Gujarati and about Gujaratis.
I have to prepare you that Sonakshi Sinha appears from nowhere and start dancing to ‘Mangda…’ and why she does that I have no idea! I have no idea why Esha Gupta communicates with the animals in French.
In the world of Indra Kumar there is no dawn, no dusk, in short nothing realistic. The characters don’t eat/ sleep/ or answer to nature’s call and most importantly, for all that they go through their clothes/ makeup/ hair remains intact till the last scene – so do their sunglasses and mobile phones.
What works in favor of the film are some witty lines, the ensemble cast and some cracking up moments like the kerosene fuelled antique helicopter built out of an auto-rickshaw body. The demerits are the senseless situations, slapstick humor and some vulgar lines.
It is credible how all the actors make the impossible situations believable. Must you watch Total Dhamaal, well it is a time pass film for sure, so if you have enough time and money to splurge you can watch the film but if you are a snob like me read the review carefully before you click the mouse to book your show.
I rate Total Dhamaal with 2 stars.
@bhawanasomaaya