It’s not often that you interview a National Award-winning Bollywood actor and he lays out the unvarnished truth about his upcoming comic caper.
“Don’t look for depth in any of the characters from ‘Total Dhamaal’... It’s a story of idiots,” declared Ajay Devgn in an interview with Gulf News tabloid!.
As you marvel at this actor-producer’s honesty, Devgn added that Indra Kumar’s latest instalment, out in the UAE on February 21, is a wacky adventure comedy of errors about four groups of morons embarking on a mission to find hidden money.
It has no deep storyline either, warns Devgn.
“It’s the situations that are funny and the way it is written it’s funny. We needed a lot of energy to play our parts, but it was a lot of fun,” said Devgn, who’s also co-produced the film.
‘Total Dhamaal’ also boasts a staggering number of actors including Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Arshad Warsi, Jaaved Jaafrey, Riteish Deshmukh, Sanjay Mishra and Boman Irani.
Here are five things to learn before you venture into the cinemas to watch ‘Total Dhamaal’.
1: ‘Total Dhamaal’ fixture Devgn told tabloid! that the film has only one intention — to make the audience laugh.
“When I heard the script of ‘Total Dhamaal’, I was laughing during those two hours and I told the director that if we make the film in the manner that you narrated, then I am ready to do the film. I saw the film recently and couldn’t hold back the laughter,” said Devgn. Every character in this film is a con man who’s after money.
“As an actor, I don’t take myself seriously either. And I suggest, the ones who go to watch ‘Total Dhamaal’ also do the same.”
2. Devgn has another tip for you. Do not overanalyse ‘Total Dhamaal’ and don’t give the reviews much importance.
“While I respect everyone’s opinion, sometimes reviewers don’t think the way the way the audiences do. Reviews aren’t the barometer to a film doing well at the box office or not.” said Devgn.
3. ‘Total Dhamaal’ will see Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit, a hit on-screen pair in the 1990s, unite on the big screen after a span of 15 years. Dixit and Kapoor have starred in blockbusters including ‘Tezaab’, ‘Beta’, ‘Lajja’, ‘Ram Lakhan’ and ‘Pukar’.
“I am very happy that we [Madhuri and I] did this film together because it is a mainstream commercial hard-core thing, which truly wants to entertain and there is no confusion about it. So, when Indra Kumar came to me with the script, I was thinking what should we do, an epic love story or something dramatic, then I thought, ‘No, this is the right film to do together’ and Indu was very convinced about it,” said Kapoor in an interview with an Indian entertainment website.
4. Legendary actress Sridevi was a part of ‘Total Dhamaal’. But her untimely death in Dubai last year saw Dixit step in.
“What took time was to digest the whole thing that had happened. It was so shocking, I was like, ‘you want me to do this role?’ Because even [the filmmakers] were stuck, they had to go on... As a person, it was hard to deal. As an actor, you know the role, the script. It’s a different matter altogether. But to accept the truth was very difficult,” Dixit told IANS.
5. Sonakshi Sinha is in a song cameo in ‘Total Dhamaal’ where she has recreated Helen’s iconic number ‘Mungda’. Although Sinha looks good, the new music video has found many haters with Sinha swatting criticism that her turn was a disservice to the original. But Sinha took the criticism on the chin and bounced right back.
“Even I like the original better and there is no comparison with that. When we recreate a song, that time we don’t think that we will make a particular song better than the original one because when you are recreating an iconic song then there is no point making comparison with the recreated song,” she said.
She added that the makers of ‘Total Dhamaal’ were only trying to repackage an old song and acquaint the younger generation with old hits.
Did you know?
“My son loves to watch my comedies. He doesn’t watch my dramas because he gets emotional,” said Devgn.
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‘Total Dhamaal’ releases in the UAE on February 21.