Dhamaal 4 (2026)
Dhamaal 4 Review: A Nostalgia-Fuelled Treasure Hunt That Forgets the Laughs
Dhamaal 4 arrives with the weight of a beloved franchise behind it. The original Dhamaal (2007) remains a cult favourite in Hindi comedy, and the prospect of reuniting Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, and Jaaved Jaaferi under director Indra Kumar promised a return to the chaotic, laugh-out-loud energy that made the series work. What audiences received instead, according to most critics, is a tired retread that mistakes volume for humour and repetition for nostalgia.
The numbers reveal a film that critics largely dismissed while audiences still turned up in decent numbers. On Rotten Tomatoes, Dhamaal 4 holds just 18% from 11 critics, with an average rating of 3.7/10. Yet the box office was respectable: it opened with ₹13.75 crore domestically on day one, climbed to ₹22.48 crore on day two, and reached ₹28.15 crore on day three, giving it a domestic opening weekend nett total of ₹64.35 crore. By the end of its theatrical run, it had earned ₹195 crore in India and ₹29.61 crore overseas, for a worldwide gross of ₹224.61 crore on a reported ₹200 crore budget—making it the 7th highest-grossing Hindi film of 2026.
Bollywood Hungama was the most generous, awarding 3 out of 5 stars and concluding that “on the whole, Dhamaal 4 is a decent, clean entertainer that should largely appeal to families and kids. However, the screenplay dips in places, and several gags don’t land with the intended force, thereby emerging as the film’s major minus points.” Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV was far harsher, giving it 2 out of 5 and calling it “unfunny, tedious and dreadfully dunderheaded,” adding that “nothing that Dhamaal 4 throws up stays afloat long enough to give the audience anything to crack up over.”
News18‘s Titas Chowdhury also gave 2 out of 5, writing that “every gag is explained, every beat underlined and every punchline repeated until there’s nothing left for the audience to discover on their own, proving Dhamaal 4 has little faith in its audience.” Rishabh Suri of Hindustan Times awarded 1.5 out of 5, concluding that “for a film called Dhamaal, there’s little fun to be had. It recycles its story, music and even its brand of comedy, hoping nostalgia will do the heavy lifting. It doesn’t.” India Today‘s Vineeta Kumar gave 1.5 out of 5, noting that “the writing feels trapped in a version of Bollywood comedy that audiences have outgrown ages ago.” Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express was the most severe, giving it 1 star and observing that “Indra Kumar’s inability to move forward from his creaky story-telling style, so stuck in the previous millennium, sinks this fourth iteration even before it’s had time to float.” A sequel, Dhamaal 5, was teased in the film’s climax.
Dhamaal 4 Cast: The Beloved Gang Returns With New Faces
The film reassembles the franchise’s core quartet while adding a roster of new characters and special appearances:
Ajay Devgn returns as Guddu Rastogi, the scheming but ultimately good-hearted ringleader of the group, now navigating a complicated relationship with his girlfriend Alia and her two children. Arshad Warsi is back as Aditya “Adi” Srivastav, whose marriage to Rosy is once again jeopardised by his brother’s clumsiness. Riteish Deshmukh plays Deshbandhu “Lallan” Roy, the hopeless romantic who marries Paaro expecting wealth and gets an auto-rickshaw instead, while Jaaved Jaaferi reprises his role as the accident-prone Manav Srivastav.
Ravi Kishan joins the franchise as Adhoora, the “professional pirate” antagonist who inadvertently destroys the treasure map and sets the plot in motion. Sanjay Mishra plays Jonny, Guddu’s loyal confidant, and Upendra Limaye is Prithvi, the double-crossing pirate whose dying confession reveals the treasure’s location. Anjali Anand brings warmth and comic energy to Paaro, whose body-shaming subplot is resolved in the film’s climax, while Sanjeeda Sheikh is Rosy and Esha Gupta plays Alia. Vijay Patkar, Brijendra Kala, Akshara Padwal, and Riyansh Dabhi round out the supporting cast. The late Satish Kaushik appears in an AI-generated cameo as Bata Bhai, and Jackie Shroff provides a voiceover cameo. Special appearances include Guru Randhawa and Ketika Sharma in the song “Qeher,” Neelkamal Singh in “Chatni,” and Sanju Rathod in “Saree.”
Dhamaal 4 Plot: Another Map, Another Treasure, Another Disaster
The story begins on the high seas, where Adhoora, a self-styled “professional pirate,” and his crew capture Prithvi aboard a ship, demanding he decode a map revealing the location of the treasure belonging to Shaitaan Singh, a ruthless pirate from the British Raj era. In a moment of bumbling incompetence, Adhoora accidentally burns the map—leaving Prithvi as the only person who remembers where the treasure is hidden. Prithvi’s former partner, Guddu Rastogi, arrives on a jet ski and confronts him about a past double-cross. When Adhoora’s henchman Jheenga spots them, a chaotic brawl erupts. In the confusion, Adhoora overheats a cannonball in his hands and hurls it onto his own ship, which bursts into flames. Guddu narrowly escapes.
Meanwhile, in Janakpur, Guddu is dating Alia, a widow with two children, Amaira and Aarav. The children, convinced their late father is irreplaceable, resent Guddu and conspire with their house help Gangubai to scare him and his friend Johnny away. Alia proposes a bonding trip to smooth things over. Elsewhere, Deshbandhu “Lallan” Roy prays in a temple for a beautiful wife whose father owns a sprawling house and a luxury car. He spots Paaro stepping out of an expensive vehicle and assumes she is the daughter of a wealthy man. They marry quickly, only for Lallan to discover that Paaro’s father is Gopaldas Seth—not the rich man himself, but his chauffeur. Gopaldas gifts Lallan an auto-rickshaw and hands over a land deed worth ₹50 lakh in Paaro’s name, sending them off to cash it.
In a separate thread, Aditya “Adi” Srivastav is faking a leg injury to win sympathy from his estranged wife Rosy, who left him after his brother Manav accidentally set her wedding dress on fire on their wedding night. Manav’s latest blunder pushes Rosy to issue an ultimatum: choose her or choose Manav. Guddu, Johnny, Amaira, and Aarav set off on their bonding trip. On the highway, Guddu spots Prithvi and gives chase, only for Adhoora and his men to join the pursuit. Prithvi leaps into Guddu’s car, and they flee—until Prithvi tumbles over a cliff edge and becomes stuck. Guddu and Johnny try to rescue him but end up dangling alongside him. By coincidence, Amaira and Aarav, seeking help on the highway, encounter Lallan, Paaro, Adi, Rosy, and Manav, who attempt a human-chain rescue. Realising he is about to die, Prithvi reveals the treasure’s location: “under an O, in a cave in a jungle with an M, at an island near a village.”
The entire group reaches the island and eventually locates the treasure, only to be captured by Adhoora and his men. It is revealed that Prithvi survived his fall into a pond and was found by Adhoora, who forced him to disclose the treasure’s whereabouts. In the chaos, Adhoora accidentally lights a stick of dynamite while everyone is inside the cave, sending the treasure plummeting into a pit. Guddu saves Adhoora’s life along with those of Amaira and Aarav. Paaro and Lallan rescue each other, and Lallan realises he should never have body-shamed her. Manav saves Rosy’s life, and she forgives him, withdrawing her ultimatum. The treasure is lost, but everyone emerges alive. Adhoora converts his ship into a tourist attraction out of gratitude to Guddu, and Amaira and Aarav finally accept him as their stepfather. As Manav is about to discard an old article, Guddu opens it and extracts something—another map. Prithvi decodes it, revealing the words “Dhamaal 5.”
“The treasure is lost, but the madness continues.”
