The poster of ‘Dhamaal 4’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
For a franchise whose premise is a loud satire of the destructive nature of human greed, the driving force, Indra Kumar, behaves like his desperate protagonists. By pushing the series into a hollow fourth installment, the makers seem to be executing their own creative heist — mining the final ounces of goodwill from a beloved 2007 comedy to secure a quick box-office payout.Ajay Devgn, who has produced the summer adventure, leads a pack of imbecile characters on screen chasing a mythical treasure. The star brings his deadpan energy to the madness as Guddu, who teams up with the eccentric Johnny (Sanjay Mishra) to hunt for a goldmine of laughs.Along the way, they are joined by the aggressive Adi (Arshad Warsi) and the stupid Manav (Javed Jaaferi), who turns simple instructions into absurd situations and treats human bodies as rubber bands. Then there is the anxious Riteish Deshmukh as the greedy Lallan bouncing off the boisterous Paro (Anjali Deshmukh) for an extra-large dose of humour. Ravi Kishan joins the party as a bungling pirate Adhoora, who has his own bizarre plans to take home the loot.Dhamaal 4 (Hindi)Director: Indra KumarDuration: 143 minutesCast: Ajay Devgn, Ravi Kishan, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Sanjay Mishra, Anjali Anand, Esha GuptaSynopsis: A diverse group of greedy misfits embarks on a jungle trek to unearth a legendary treasure.They are masters of the game, yet the script leaves them with absolutely nothing to hang onto. The screenplay works like a comic digest where writer Paritosh Painter has merely swapped out the cover, leaving the inner pages completely repetitive. Instead of crafting a cohesive narrative that leverages their sharp situational wit, the writers strand these veterans inside a fragmented sequence of sketches. They seem to be forced to manufacture energy out of thin air, react to unpolished CGI animals, and recycle dated gags, in which the derriere becomes the literal and figurative focal point.
