# Dhamaal

Dhamaal (transl. Fun) is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by Indra Kumar and produced by Ashok Thakeria. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Riteish Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Aashish Chaudhary and Javed Jaffrey in the lead roles while Asrani, Sanjay Mishra, Murli Sharma, Vijay Raaz, Manoj Pahwa, Tiku Talsania and Prem Chopra are featured in supporting roles. Inspired by Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), it is the first installment of the Dhamaal film series.
In 2011, the film spawned a sequel, under the title Double Dhamaal, with the lead cast reprising their roles. A third reboot sequel, under the name Total Dhamaal was released in February 2019, with only Deshmukh, Warsi and Jaffrey returning with an entirely new cast and a fresh story, having no connections to its predecessors.

## Plot

The film introduces four friends - The first one is Deshbandhu Roy, who is kicked out of his job for not guarding a certain building. Another friend, Aditya "Adi" Shrivastav, is using a mixtape to play a saxophone in order to make some money and after his audience finds out, they thrash him. Adi's autistic brother Manav tries to get a Rs. 50 banknote back from a guy by reaching his wallet, only for his hand to be stuck in the guy's back pocket, while putting the wallet back after getting the money and follows him to the one of the stalls in the restroom. The guy soon finds out and thrashes Manav. The fourth and the final friend, Boman Contractor who's the spoiled son of Nari Contractor, who loves his car more than him, accidentally damages the car window, which results him being kicked out of his house by Nari. All four of them wind up together in a woman's house, where they go partying at nightclubs. In the house however, they're useless, as they don't do anything around and haven't paid their rent yet, the woman kicks them out of the house for not paying their rents and tells them to get a decent job.
Desperate to earn money, they devise up a plan. Adi tells Manav to steal a painting from the house to sell to the son of the late businessman Dwiwedi. However, Manav accidentally picks up a blank painting. They humorously sell the painting for Rs. 20,000 to Dwiwedi. The next day, they pick up the original painting with the intention to sell it to Mr. Aggarwal, not knowing that he has been murdered. The case is handled by Inspector Gadha Kulkarni, who learns that before Mr. Aggrawal was murdered he got a call with a code "Horse ate all the grass". When the four arrive at Agrawal's residence, he immediately arrests them after demanding to see the blank painting. While driving on the highway, Kulkarni frees the foursomes upon being informed that they are innocent.
The four are overjoyed until they suddenly witness a car accident and encounter the dying driver, Don Bose. He tells them that he has hidden Rs. 10 crores of money in the St. Sebastian garden in Goa under a big 'W'. He tells them to divide the money equally among themselves and then dies. Shortly after, Inspector Kabir Nayak, who has been trying to arrest Bose for the past ten years, arrives and tries to extract information from the four but in vain, and they escape from him. Desperate for his promotion, Kabir is determined to capture the four. The four steal Nari's car but not before hitting Nari on the head and making him unconscious. Roy loses control of the car in a forest after nearly colliding an animal and hits it against a tree, breaking both headlights. The next day Kabir is transferred to Yavatmal for failing to capture Bose. Furious, he walks towards his table where Nari is waiting for him to file a complaint against his son for stealing his car, and gives Kabir the photos of Boman and his car. Meanwhile, all four come across a broken bridge which is the only way through the forest. They decide to jump the car but Boman is reluctant to do so. They manage to succeed but it crashes and explodes.
Kabir tracks the four down after discovering the destroyed car. He is able to learn the location of the treasure due to Manav's dumbness. He ties all four of them to a tree and sets off. However, they manage to escape and it is revealed that Roy had actually cut the engine wires of Kabir's car so to make sure he has not gone too far. They reach a dhaba and pretend to be detectives, making the villagers and the dhaba owner believe that Kabir is Pasha, a dangerous gang leader and lures them to capture him for the reward would be Rs. 15 lakhs. Kabir defeats the villagers and he and the four arrive at a settlement – 60% would belong to the four and 40% would belong to Kabir. But Adi insists on having his and Manav's money in separate shares when they were planning to pay Boman as one share for damaging his car. Consequently, a fight ensues and it is decided that whoever reaches the treasure first would take all the money.
All four part ways and try to reach Goa as soon as possible. Boman encounters his father; though Nari initially wants to kill his son for wrecking the car, he changes his mind after he learns about the ten crores. Nari and Boman find a private pilot but hilarious conditions cause the duo to fly in utter despair when the pilot abandons the steer and collapses into alcoholism while airline customer service provider D. K. Malik pushes them to near madness, failing to save himself, but they manage to reach Goa. Adi and Manav travel together. They keep failing to hitch a ride to take them to Goa until they bump into Iyer, who irritates them throughout the journey by continuously extending his patronymic name while introducing himself. Roy encounters a dacoit Babu Bhai and agree to divide the money among themselves provided they reach Goa as soon as possible. Kabir nearly escapes death with a school child whom he saved as he hangs off a cliff and is pushed to deal with some school children who were supposed to visit and perform at a charity event.
Finally, as they together reach the garden, they mutually agree to find the treasure together before dividing it. They locate four palm trees which make the shape of a 'W', but Kabir arrives there and tells them to divide the money against them to which all agree. They dig there and are able to find the money. But again a fight ensues over the payment for the damage of the car. All are enraged when Adi and Manav are decided to pay the money as one unit but are separate units while taking money. The fight goes on during which Kabir takes all the money and runs. He tries to escape in a hot air balloon on a beach but finds it tied to the pole. He dives in an effort to cut the rope but is beaten up by the rest who pursue him. The balloon blows off shore, disheartening everyone, but the wind changes direction and the balloon again blows onshore. Night falls and they follow the balloon in a towing van. The balloon clashes against a pole and the bag falls down. All of them try to collect as much money as they can when suddenly some spot lights focus on them and a crowd cheers loudly behind them. Realizing that they are on a stage and the occasion is the charity event to be attended by the performing children who were with Kabir, they further learn about the pathetic condition of the orphaned kids who were to be honored through charity, and decide to donate the money to the orphans. At the end, the chief guest of the event – Commissioner M. I. Chaturvedi, who is Kabir's boss, praises all of them, while also telling Kabir that he will receive his promotion and that there is no better of use of this money than giving it for a charitable cause.

## Cast

* Sanjay Dutt as Inspector Kabir Naik: A no-nonsense cop
* Riteish Deshmukh as Deshbandhu Roy: Boman, Manav and Adi's best friend
* Arshad Warsi as Aditya "Adi" Shrivastav: Manav's brother, Roy and Boman's best friend
* Aashish Chaudhary as Boman Contractor, Nari's eccentric son
* Jaaved Jaaferi as Manav Shrivastav: Adi's brother and Boman and Roy's best friend
* Prem Chopra as Bose
* Asrani as Nari Contractor, Boman's eccentric father
* Tiku Talsania as Commissioner M. I. Chaturvedi
* Vijay Raaz as Dev Kumar "D. K." Malik
* Suhasini Mulay as the Landlady
* Sanjay Mishra as Dacoit Babu Bhai, Roy's friend
* Murali Sharma as Inspector Kulkarni
* Muhammad Zaki as crying old man
* Vinay Apte as Prabhakarana Sripalawardhana Atapattu Jayasuriya Laxmana Shivramakrishna Shivavenkata Rajashekhara Srinivasana Tiruchirappalli Yekyaparampeel Parambatur Chinnaswami Mutthuswami Venugopal Iyer
* Vijay Patkar as Air Traffic Controller
* Rana Jung Bahadur as Kailash, the owner of a Dhaba
* Surendra Rajan as Orphanage Man
* Ninad Kamat as Function Host
* Ankita M. Sharma as Shabnam "Shabbo", the woman going to Mental Hospital
* Liam Mara
* Tariq Zaheer
* Manoj Pahwa as Pilot Amyjot Randhawa
* Kiku Sharda as Constable
* D. Santosh as Encounter Cop
* Sahil Chauhan as Kid Himesh Reshammiya
* Kurush Deboo as Amit Dwivedi, Dwivedi's son (victim of the fraud painting con)
* Sanjay Swaraj as Samir Agarwal (special appearance)
* Sneha as Diya, Kabir's Love Interest (Cameo Appearance)
* Karmveer Choudhary in Kailash Da Dhaba
* Vaibhav Mathur as Dacoit's man
* Vishwajeet Soni as Bengali Car Driver
* Jayesh Thakkar as Taxi Driver

## Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is composed by Adnan Sami with lyrics penned by Sameer. The songs, "Dekho Dekho" and "Miss India Marthi Mujhpe", were both known as the title song, since the main chorus of both the songs included the title "Dhamaal".
All lyrics are written by Sameer; all music is composed by Adnan Sami

## Critical response

Taran Adarsh of IndiaFM gave the film 3 out of 5, writing "On the whole, DHAMAAL is one joyride that should keep its investors smiling!" Rajeev Masand gave the film 3 out of 5, writing "A little over two hours long, barely any time wasted on unnecessary songs, and surprisingly, the complete absence of any romantic track – there’s so much to like about Dhamaal. Then that’s three out of five and a thumbs up for director Indra Kumar’s squeaky-clean comedy Dhamaal. Sometimes, a good laugh is all you need to make your day. Don’t miss this one, a good laugh is guaranteed. " Syed Firdaus Ashraf of Rediff.com gave the film 3 out of 5, writing "Actors like Vijay Raaz (as the Air Traffic Controller who tries to give directions to a plane that has lost its pilot, Manoj Pahwa, to binge drinking), and Sanjay Mishra (a dacoit) take the film to another level. However, the film could have been tighter. Editor Sanjay Sankla should have been better with the scissors. Besides, the story doesn't run too deep. It is never explained how the four good-for-nothing blokes become friends in the first place. Despite the minor flaws though, Dhamaal is similar to David Dhawan's brand of comedies: Fully dhamaal!"
Khalid Mohamed of Hindustan Times gave more mixed review, writing "In sum, Dhamaal isn’t exactly what the title promises. But it does have its laugh-out-loud moments.. it’s not bad at all. Go ahead and try. "

## Sequel

A sequel named Double Dhamaal was released in 2011. The third film of the franchise was named Total Dhamaal and released in 2019.