Double Dhamaal (2011) – Review in English

About the story: Since the four friends Roy (Ritesh Deshmukh), Boman (Ashish Chowdhry), Adi (Arshad Warsi) and his brother Manav (Javed Jaffrey) in a burst of sentimentality donated their shares of 100 million illegally gained rupees to charity, they are waiting in vain for another chance to get rich without having to work for it. In contrast to them, their former rival Kabir Nayak (Sanjay Dutt) has found his way to wealth; the ex-inspector, his ladylove Kamini (Mallika Sherawat) and his sister Kiya (Kangna Ranaut) are forming a trio of frauds and live a life in luxury. In their attempt to jump on Kabir's bandwagon of success, the four friends are deceitfully cheated by Kabir and decide to take revenge and to ruin Kabir completely by all available means...


Finally a sequel which actually deserves this label. Seamlessly Double Dhamaal links to the hit film Dhamaal from 2007 and illustrates this even by some flashbacks to the first film. But this is almost the most positive thing you can say about Double Dhamaal as the sequel never manages to reach the surprising ease of Dhamaal. On the contrary: While Dhamaal was a mostly amusing cat-and-mouse game between four not very intelligent good-for-nothings and a not very capable inspector, Double Dhamaal (at the latest after the interval) sinks into loud and shrill slapstick with jokes which are no jokes and with scenes which make you do only one thing: pity the actors. What on earth has driven director Indra Kumar to expose his actors to such embarrassments?

Respect for the "four jokers" Arshad Warsi, Ritesh Deshmukh, Ashish Chowdhry and Javed Jaffrey for having bravely fought their way through this mindless orgy of disguises. Mallika Sherawat and Kangna Ranaut didn't have very much more to do than looking good and dancing, with Mallika at least having got the lively solo number "Jalebi Bai". Even the supporting actors were more or less props but did quite well – Satish Kaushik as Bata Bhai with a very filmi language, J. Brandon Hill as the rough gangster Johnny Bonzela, and Zakir Hussain who even managed to get his Mohsin Bhai a surprising bit of dignity.

But on that account he clearly was overtrumped by Sanjay Dutt whom Indra Kumar saved from having to play a dimwitted Fidgety Philip like his colleagues. In all the Double Dhamaal chaos he acts pleasantly normally and, towards the end, even shows genuine and touching emotions in a way you wouldn't have expected it anymore in this dumb slapstick orgy. These scenes, plus a few succeeded jokes like the Sholay-Dhamaal-French Fries scene and some other allusions to the first film (which, of course, you only understand in their entirety when you've seen Dhamaal), I recommend Indra Kumar to keep in mind in case he actually wants to make another sequel. Otherwise, Total Dhamaal will be totally lost from the very beginning.

Produced by Indra Kumar & Ashok Thakeria; Directed by Indra Kumar
137 Min.; DVD: Reliance, English Subtitles (incl. songs)
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