Dhamaal 4 and the baffling resilience of the terrible comedy

There was a time when four entries into a slapstick franchise felt like a threat rather than a business plan. Yet here we are in 2026, staring down the barrel of Dhamaal 4. Released to the collective sigh of anyone who remembers what a joke is supposed to sound like, Ajay Devgn’s latest venture proves that some cinematic properties simply refuse to go quietly into the night.

The critical consensus is exactly what you would expect for a film that substitutes actual punchlines with a CGI avalanche. Reviewers have rightly called it creaky and unfunny, noting that the franchise’s comedic sensibilities seem to have fossilised a decade ago. Naturally, this absolute drubbing mattered not at all to the Indian public, who obligingly handed over 14 crore rupees on opening day.

This is the genuinely perplexing part of the Dhamaal 4 phenomenon. Its mere existence, let alone its completely respectable box office haul, points to a baffling resilience for assembly-line slapstick. Nobody is being tricked into the cinema. Thirty-eight thousand advance tickets were sold in national chains alone. Audiences are actively, willingly seeking out the very cinematic sludge the critics are desperately warning them about.

You have to admire the shamelessness. While the rest of the industry exhausts itself chasing prestige or complex IP universes, this franchise just rolls out of bed, points a green screen at Ajay Devgn, and collects its money. The survival of the uninspired slapstick comedy is no longer a fluke; it is a permanent feature of the landscape. We are trapped in the avalanche, and apparently, we bought the tickets ourselves.