‘Dhamaal 4’ Movie Review: Ajay Devgn Struggles in This Listless Hunt for Laughs

‘Dhamaal 4’ Movie Review: There is a distinct, exhausting phenomenon in modern Hindi cinema where a franchise becomes a ghost of its former self, yet refuses to stop rattling its chains. Director Indra Kumar’s Dhamaal universe began in 2007 as a genuinely hysterical, logic-defying, quote-a-minute slapstick classic. Nearly two decades later, we have arrived at Dhamaal 4. Released on July 10, 2026, this latest iteration attempts to recapture that lightning in a bottle. Instead, it plays out like a tiresome, derivative chore.

Headlined once again by Ajay Devgn, who stepped in during 2019’s Total Dhamaal, the film tries to marry the franchise’s classic “greedy treasure hunt” template with a pirate theme and bizarre supernatural twists. While it may satisfy very young children or those seeking a completely mindless distraction on a lazy Sunday, Dhamaal 4 is ultimately a listless hunt for laughs. It is a film that seems deeply in love with its own legacy, yet entirely uninterested in doing the creative work required to justify its existence.

The Plot: Pirates, Ghosts, and Recycled Greed

The narrative structure of Dhamaal 4 is a beat-for-beat repetition of the formula Indra Kumar has leaned on for years. A group of eccentric, morally ambiguous, and aggressively loud characters catch wind of a massive hidden treasure. What follows is a frantic, every-man-for-himself race against time, physics, and basic human decency to reach the gold first.

This time, the writers (Balvinder Singh Suri, Paritosh Painter, and Vedd Prakash) attempt to spice up the visual landscape by introducing a pirate-themed wild goose chase. Guddu (Ajay Devgn) and Jonny (Riteish Deshmukh) spearhead the chaotic expedition, while franchise veterans Adi (Arshad Warsi) and the perpetually childlike Manav (Jaaved Jaaferi) find themselves dragged into the madness.

To add a layer of novelty, the film introduces a supernatural element. The gang runs into a series of ghost tricks and haunted setups—reminiscent of Devgn’s own Raju Chacha or the Golmaal Again playbook—as well as a pirate aesthetic that feels less like Pirates of the Caribbean and more like a high-budget school play. Along the way, they clash with new faces, including Ravi Kishan, who injects a burst of regional energy, and Anjali Anand, who plays Riteish’s beleaguered partner, Paaro.

Ajay Devgn: A Star Safely on Cruise Control

The fundamental issue at the heart of Dhamaal 4 is its leading man. Ajay Devgn is an actor of immense gravitas and proven comic timing—look no further than the early Golmaal films or Ishq to see how brilliantly he can navigate manic comedy. However, in Dhamaal 4, Devgn looks visibly checked out. He sleepwalks through the narrative, operating entirely on cruise control.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|               THE AJAY DEVGN COMEDY SPECTRUM                |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|  [Genuinely Hysterical]               [Visibly Indifferent] |
|  Golmaal (2006) ----> All The Best ----> Total Dhamaal ----> Dhamaal 4 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Guddu is supposed to be the scheming, sharp-witted anchor of this madness. Instead, Devgn plays him with a weary indifference. When the script forces him to re-enact bits from his own filmography—such as frantically chanting “Ram Ram… Mara Mara…” in a desperate callback to his iconic breakdowns in Ishq—it doesn’t feel like a clever homage. It feels like an actor being asked to mimic his younger, more energetic self because the current script has nothing original for him to do.

Devgn’s chemistry with Sanjay Mishra provides a few brief glimmers of amusement, but it isn’t enough to save his performance from feeling completely perfunctory. Reportedly, Devgn took a massive pay cut to help manage the film’s bloated budget. While that is a noble producer-friendly move behind the scenes, one wishes he had invested an equal amount of creative energy into his performance onscreen.

Outdated Humour and Lazy Writing

Slapstick comedy doesn’t need logic, but it absolutely needs rhythm, wit, and a basic understanding of modern sensibilities. Dhamaal 4 fails on all three fronts. The screenwriters seem convinced that comedy is directly proportional to volume. Characters don’t converse; they scream. They don’t react; they flail.

Worse still is the film’s heavy reliance on regressive, bottom-of-the-barrel humor. In 2026, it is genuinely baffling to see a mainstream Bollywood film dedicate so much runtime to relentless body-shaming and mean-spirited gags. Anjali Anand’s character, Paaro, is subjected to a barrage of fat-shaming jokes that feel incredibly lazy. The narrative treats her like a human punching bag—setting her on fire on her wedding night, throwing her out of windows, and nearly drowning her. It is an uncomfortable mix of outdated tropes that rings incredibly tone-deaf.

When the film isn’t punch-down bullying its own characters, it resorts to low-brow physical comedy that centers entirely on the destruction of the male anatomy. The number of times a character’s groins are crushed, smashed, or assaulted by animals is staggeringly high. It is a brand of infantile, Looney Tunes-style humor that might make an eight-year-old chuckle, but leaves adult audiences sitting in stone-faced silence.

Breaking the Fourth Wall or Lazy Writing?

The film is so insecure about its own identity that it constantly breaks the fourth wall to remind you of better movies. Characters explicitly point out when a situation mirrors a classic scene from the 2007 original. There is even a painful pun where a character mistakes a literal rainbow (Indradhanush) for the director, Indra Kumar. Pointing out your own lack of originality doesn’t make it clever meta-humor; it just confirms that you are running entirely on fumes.

The Saving Graces: Riteish, Jaaved, and the Visuals

If Dhamaal 4 avoids becoming an absolute, unwatchable disaster, it is entirely due to the heroic efforts of a few supporting cast members who treat the material with far more respect than it deserves.

• Jaaved Jaaferi & Riteish Deshmukh: Jaaved’s Manav remains the crown jewel of this franchise. Even when the script restrains him to keep him from overshadowing his co-stars, his deadpan, innocent idiocy is a breath of fresh air. Riteish Deshmukh, paired with Anjali Anand, exhibits brilliant comic timing and even manages a surprising flash of genuine emotional vulnerability during the film’s chaotic climax.
• Ravi Kishan: As a fresh addition to the chaotic ensemble, Kishan brings a wonderfully eccentric, high-octane energy that temporarily wakes the film up from its creative slumber whenever he is on screen.
• Production Value & VFX: To the film’s credit, it doesn’t look cheap. Unlike many modern comedies that rely entirely on flat green screens, Dhamaal 4 utilizes expansive, real locations and surprisingly solid visual effects. A cliff-top rescue sequence in the second half is genuinely well-staged, offering a brief moment of effective physical tension amidst the narrative debris.

The Technical Missteps: Cheap AI and Loud Music

While the physical sets and stunt sequences look great, the film stumbles hard on a technical level elsewhere. Many viewers and critics have noted the jarring use of poor-quality Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to generate backstory montages and flashback sequences. It looks unpolished and cheap, completely at odds with the big-budget scale of the rest of the film.

The music is similarly uninspired. Instead of crafting new, memorable tracks, the film relies heavily on loud, overbearing remixes of trending songs like Gulabi Saree and Chatni. While these tracks add a momentary jolt of rhythm to the theatrical experience, they function primarily as loud wallpaper designed to distract from the thinness of the scenes they are plastered over.

The Verdict: A Heist on Our Sense of Humour

At a runtime of 143 minutes, Dhamaal 4 feels like an eternity. It is a film caught in a tragic paradox: it is fiercely protective of its brand identity, yet it fundamentally misunderstands what made the original Dhamaal so universally beloved. The 2007 original worked because it was a tight, fast-paced ensemble piece where every actor was completely synchronized and running on high-voltage comic energy.

Dhamaal 4 replaces that organic energy with corporate calculations, bloated budgets, and a tired superstar who looks like he would rather be anywhere else on earth. The film ends with a blatant post-credit tease for Dhamaal 5. Given the film’s strong opening weekend box office numbers—driven entirely by family audiences and franchise nostalgia—that sequel is inevitable. But if this is the creative trajectory the franchise is locked into, the only real heist happening here is the one being committed on our collective sense of humor.

Leave your thinking cap, your logic, and your expectations of sophisticated wit entirely at the door. If you have young kids, they might find the cartoonish violence entertaining. For everyone else, Dhamaal 4 is a loud, exhausting, and ultimately listless affair.

Alternative Rating: 1.5 / 5 Stars