The storyline of the film is loosely based on 2015 film Vacation[1] and some scenes borrowed from the 2014 film Blended. Total Dhamaal was released on 22 February 2019 to polarizing reviews. Made on a budget of ₹90–100 crore, Total Dhamaal grossed ₹228.27 crore worldwide and became commercially successful.[4]
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 a divorce and argue over keeping 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 learns 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 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 meet a local villager who claims to know the route to the highway. They both take him with them and try to cross a wooden bridge to get to the other side which breaks down. After luckily avoiding falling into the cliff, they realize that the villager was instead leading them to a restaurant called Hotel Highway which leads Avinash to beat him. Later, they try to cross a river to get to the real highway, which gets filled by water when the dam gets opened and they get swept to the edge of the waterfall. Lallan takes him and Jhingur to a nearby helicopter service, where they travel on an old and broken helicopter of the owner which is on the verge of crashing. They jump off the crashing helicopter and land on a building under construction. Adi and Manav use the stolen car to reach Janakpur. However, Adi crashes the car in a desert after getting distracted by an attractive woman and then he and Manav accidentally mess up with the remote, causing the car to blow up and they barely escape the burning car. Soon, they get attacked by a flock of vulture and Adi gets stuck in quicksand after escaping them. Manav finds a snake instead and Adi is forced to grab it to get out. When Adi gets out, he bashes Manav for not bringing a nearby rope that was being used for laundry.
After somehow escaping near-death scenarios, everyone reaches Omkar Zoo where they start finding the hidden money. They see that a man named Chinappa Swamy is planning to illegally close the zoo and turn it into a housing colony by killing all the animals. When the caretaker Prachi disagrees, he locks her inside the control station. The group then sees that Chinappa's men are poisoning the animal's food to kill them. When Jhingur, Manav, Johnny and Bindu ask to save them, the group decides to save the animals. Guddu comes across a lion and succeeds in keeping him from eating the poisoned steak. Lallan and Jhingur try to stop a baby gorilla from eating the poisoned bananas but Lallan gets beaten up by the father gorilla. Lallan saves the gorillas by convincing them to not eat the bananas. Adi and Manav try to rescue a baby elephant which has eaten the poisoned sugarcanes. They save him but the elephant pukes on Adi and the elephants thank them. Avinash and Bindu try to stop a tiger from eating the poisoned steak but Bindu gets chased by the tiger and she escapes him by climbing up a tree. Avinash then succeeds in convincing the tiger. Prachi gets freed when her pet monkey Security opens the door. After successfully saving the animals, the group finds the OK and decides to split the money equally between all of them. They, along with the Commissioner after finally tracking down Guddu and Johnny, are confronted by Chinappa but get saved when Security holds a gun to Chinappa's face. The animals then chase Chinappa. The Commissioner forgives Guddu and Johnny when he also receives some of the money. Avinash and Bindu forgive each other and decide to live happily together. Guddu falls in love with Prachi with Johnny asking if he can get a girlfriend too.
The film score was composed by Sandeep Shirodkar while the songs in the film were composed by Gourov-Roshin, with lyrics by Kumaar and Kunwar Juneja. Vatsal Chevli assisted in mixing all the songs. All songs mixed by Aftab at headroom studios.
The film was released on 22 February 2019 on 3700 screens in India and on 786 screens in overseas market making worldwide count of 4486 screens.[21]
Earlier was set to release on 7 December 2018 but due to extended VFX work the release date has been pushed back to 22 February 2019.[22][1] The film has been certified with runtime of 127 mins by British Board of Film Classification and all set to release on schedule.[23]
After Pulwama attack, Ajay Devgn and Total Dhamaal makers have decided not to release Total Dhamaal in Pakistan. The makers of the film including the entire crew, actors and makers have donated ₹50 lakhs to families of soldiers who died in the Pulwama attack.[24]
Marketing
The first teaser look of the film is released on 14 January 2019.[25][26]
The first look theatrical poster was released on 18 January 2019.[27] The second look poster released on 19 January 2019 with trailer release date announcement on 21 January 2019.[28] Third official theatrical poster of the film is unveiled on 20 January 2019. It is promising "The wildest adventure ever!"[29]
Two theatrical fresh look posters of the film are made public on 21 January 2019. These have pictures of main cast on it.[30][31]
Home media
The film became available as VOD on Disney+ Hotstar on 20 April 2019.[32] The Blu-ray and DVD was also released in August 2019 by Shemaroo.
Reception
Box office
The opening day (non-holiday) collection of the film from Indian market was ₹16.50 crore. Its lifetime domestic gross collection was ₹182.09 crore and from overseas markets it was ₹46.18 crore. The worldwide gross collection of the film was ₹2282.7 million. The film grossed ₹100 crore (US$12 million) worldwide in three days of release. In opening week the film grossed ₹150 crore (US$18 million). In 12 days of its release the film crossed ₹200 crore (US$23 million) mark in gross collection.[4][7]
Critical response
As of October 2021[update], the film holds a 30% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews with an average rating of 3/10.[33]Taran Adarsh rated the film with three stars and found it entertaining and loaded with clean humour.[34] Himesh Mankad from Koimoi gives 3 star out of 5 says "Total Dhamaal is a fair clean entertainer that can be enjoyed with the entire family. It's definitely an improvement over previous installment Double Dhamaal".[35] Trade analyst Sumit Kadel stated that "Total Dhamaal is funny specially in Ist half. Its a no brainer fast paced family entertainer, lavishly shot & well performed by Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh & the entire cast. 2nd half is moderate & it could have been better. Overall Good film." Rating- 3 out of 5[36] Ronak Kotecha writing for The Times of India gave two stars out of five and feels that in the ensemble cast, the film had the potential to be a comic roller coaster ride. He concluded saying "However, the fact that the film is slapstick is not a problem, what brings it down is poor writing and execution."[37]Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 1.5 stars out of 5, commenting "I want to say here that I’m not against comedies that require complete suspension of disbelief. But even that requires thought, clever writing, and a lightness of touch. Total Dhamaal has none of those things. It’s a cash-grab film that believes ‘bigger is better’. Alas it’s not. From multiple remix songs, to the low-IQ racist and sexist humour, and a reliance on familiar gags and tropes, this is lazy, cynical filmmaking."[38]Raja Sen writing for Hindustan Times rated the film with one star out of five.[39]
Future
Dhamaal 4 (2026)
After the trailer release of Total Dhamaal, the third movie in an interview, director Indra Kumar said that another Dhamaal sequel is definitely on the cards and added that he has already registered two titles – Triple Dhamaal and Full On Dhamaal – for the next installment of the franchise. The fourth film will most probably be titled Dhamaal 4.[40]
