Total Dhamaal
- Director
- Indra Kumar
- Studio
- Fox Star StudiosAjay Devgn FFilmsPen Studios
- Release Date
- 21 February 2019
- Running Time
- 127 min
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
- Budget
- ₹90.00 Cr
- Box Office
- ₹228.27 Cr
Review
Madhur Bhandarkar's "Total Dhamaal" is an ambitious ensemble comedy that swings wildly between inspired chaos and exhausting excess. The film attempts to juggle multiple storylines—from a heist gone wrong to a fractured marriage to bumbling firefighters—all converging on a treasure hunt at a zoo. When the ensemble cast chemistry clicks, particularly in the slapstick set pieces and the absurdist situations engineered by the wayward GPS and malfunctioning plane sequences, there's genuine entertainment value. Ajay Devgn and Anil Kapoor share decent comedic timing, and the film's commitment to old-school physical comedy deserves acknowledgment in an era dominated by forced one-liners. However, the narrative lacks coherence, juggling too many disparate threads without weaving them into a satisfying whole.
The real stumbling block is that "Total Dhamaal" confuses quantity with quality—more characters, more explosions, more chaos doesn't automatically equal more laughs. The humor often relies on slapstick repetition rather than clever writing, and by the second half, the relentless barrage of gags becomes numbing rather than amusing. The film's technical execution is competent enough, and the zoo setting provides some visual variety, but the emotional arcs feel half-baked. Avinash and Bindu's marital troubles, which could have grounded the comedy, dissolve into the background noise. The movie suffers from the classic Bollywood ensemble comedy problem: trying to please everyone whil
Storyline
Guddu and his partner Johnny steal 50 crore of black money from Police Commissioner Shamsher Singh. When they try to escape, their associate Pintoo double-crosses them and drives away with money. Avinash and Bindu are a troubled couple who file for divorce and clash over the custody of their child. Lallan and Jhingur are partners who work in a fire brigade service where they only save people first who bribe them which leads to them being fired after causing a mishap while rescuing people from a house in fire. Adi and Manav find a job at an art gallery where they accidentally destroy the whole gallery and escape with the owner's advanced remote-controlled car. Meanwhile, Pintoo plans to leave the country but Guddu and Johnny catch up to him. While running from them, Pintoo gets onto a private plane to escape but realizes too late that instead of the pilot, he brought the janitor with him. The janitor escapes with the only parachute and the plane crashes. Coincidentally everyone arrives at the site of the crash where Pintoo reveals that the money is kept in the Omkar Zoo in Janakpur by him and asks them to look under an OK. After learning about the money, everyone decides to grab the money for themselves.
Guddu and Johnny's car breaks down and they wait on the road to find another car. After finding one, they come across the Police Commissioner who then chases them both to a railway crossing, and they nearly escape the Commissioner when a train collides with their car. They then find an advanced car with a sarcastic Chindi-speaking G.P.S system that directs them to wrong routes and ultimately leads the car down a steep slope and destroys the car. Finally, they get on a plane which they believe is going on a diving trip but soon find out that it is actually going for a skydiving trip and are forced to both reluctantly jump off the plane. Avinash drives the car into the forest while claiming he knows a shortcut to the airport. When they get lost in the forest, they me
