23 Sept 2007

Movie review - Dhamaal

I must admit that I never thought I would watch a movie named ‘Dhamaal’. However Outlook’s Namrata Joshi had given it a good review and I respect that dame’s reviewing skills quite a bit.

It was so worth it.

Inspired by It’s a mad mad mad world and generously recycling old school jokes, Mr Bean episodes, Tinkle stories, internet forwards et al, the movie manages to get the comedy element just right.

You need to get past Manav’s and Boman’s introductory scenes, which have the gross kind of toilet humour that makes me avoid most movies with that have a minimum of four heroes in it. Once you cross that, it is pretty much a smooth ride. The five main characters are mostly hilarious, with Javed miles ahead of the rest (Why oh why is he not acting in more movies?). All of them are on a hunt for a treasure buried in Goa. They make the trip down to Goa, fighting amongst themselves, splitting up, making other friends and finally reuniting to make one last effort. It ends with the same lightness that flows through the rest of the movie.

At two and a half hours, it is just the right length. The first half is more hilarious than the second. There are no useless jokes about women and the toilet humour stuff is just about five minutes long. A dozen characters roll in and out of the movie, all of them quite interesting. Stereotypes are shamelessly laughed at but this is the kind of movie where you expect and forgive it. It has definitely been a long time since some really decent slapstick made it to Bollywood big screen. Good time pass.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Must check this out.

Anita said...

unfortunately some of the guys in my office did not like it. so i guess each to her own.

Aqua said...

haven't watched dhamaal yet. i think i'm suffering from a tusshharrr kapoorr overdose on tv.

now you should watch "loins of punjab". really funny movie. not as funny as bollywood calling but definitely better than the rest.

Anita said...

no tushar kapoor in dhamal (yeah even i was surprised to note that). planning to catch loins of punjab. junta has recommended it.