Dhamaal

Four good-for-nothing friends - Roy (Ritesh Deshmukh), Adi (Arshad Warsi), Boman (Aashish Chaudhary), and Manav (Javed Jaffrey) - are kicked out of their house by their landlady (Suhasini Mulay) for not paying their rents. Desperate to earn money, they devise up a plan. Adi tells Manav to steal a painting from the house. They decide to sell it to the son of the late Businessman Dwiwedi. However, Manav accidentally picks up a blank painting not knowing the reality. They humorously sell the painting for Rs.20,000 to Dwiwedi. They then pick up the original painting with the intention to sell it to Mr. Aggarwal, not knowing that he has been murdered. The case is handled by Inspector Kulkarni (Murli Sharma). He learns that before Mr. Aggrawal was murdered, he was speaking on the phone to somebody and he mentioned the words "horse" and "grass." He interprets these words to be some code language. The four arrive at Agrawal's residence. Kulkarni demands to see the painting. Seeing the horse and grass on the painting, he immediately arrests them.

While driving on the highway, Kulkarni frees the foursomes upon being informed that they are innocent. The four are overjoyed until they suddenly witness a car accident and encounter the dying driver, Don Bose (Prem Chopra). He tells them that he has hidden a treasure of 10 crore in the St. Sebastian garden in Goa under a big 'W'. He tells them to divide the money equally among themselves and then dies. They come across Inspector Kabir Nayak (Sanjay Dutt) who has been trying to arrest Bose for the past ten years. He tries to extract information from the four but in vain, and they escape from there and decide to travel to Goa. Desperate for his promotion, Kabir is determined to capture the four. All four friends steal Boman's car which belongs to his father Nari (Asrani), who loves his car more than his son and threw his son out after he damaged his car. The friends manage to steal their car but not before hitting Nari on the head and making him unconscious. Roy loses control of the car in a forest and hits it against a tree, breaking both headlights. They decide to spend the night in the car. The next day Kabir is transferred to Yavatmal for failing to capture Bose. Furious, he walks towards his table where Nari is waiting for him to file a complaint against his son for stealing his car. He gives Kabir the photos of Boman and his car. Meanwhile, all four come across a broken bridge which is the only way through the forest. They decide to jump the car but Boman is reluctant to do so. They manage to jump the car to the other side but it crashes and explodes.

Kabir tracks the four down after discovering the destroyed car. He is able to learn the location of the treasure due to Manav's dumbness. He ties all four of them to a tree and sets off. However they manage to escape and it is revealed that Roy had actually cut the engine wires of Kabir's car so he must have not gone too far. They reach a dhaba and pretend to be detectives. They make the villagers and the dhaba owner believe that Kabir is Pasha, a dangerous gang leader and lures them to capture him for the reward would be Rs. 15 lakhs. Kabir defeats the villagers and he and the four arrive at a settlement - 60% would belong to the four and 40% would belong to Kabir. But Adi insists on having his and Manav's money in separate shares when they were planning to pay Boman as one share for damaging his car. Consequently, a fight ensues and is decided that whoever reaches the treasure first would take all the money.

All four part ways and try to reach Goa as soon as possible. Roy encounters a dacoit Babu Bhai (Sanjay Mishra) and agree to divide the money among themselves provided they reach Goa as soon as possible. Boman also encounters his father. Though Nari initially wants to kill his son, he changes his mind after he learns about the ten crores. Adi and Manav travel together. Kabir nearly escapes death as he hangs off a cliff and is pushed to deal with some school children who were supposed to visit and perform at a charity event. Adi and Manav fail to hitch a ride to take them to Goa until they bump into Iyer, who irritates them throughout the journey by continuously extending his patronymic name while introducing himself.

Nari and Boman find a private pilot but hilarious conditions cause the duo to fly in utter despair when the pilot abandons the steer and collapses into alcoholism while airline customer service provider D.K. Malik pushes them to near madness, failing to save himself, but they manage to reach Goa. Finally, as they together reach the garden, they mutually agree to find the treasure together before dividing it. Manav is able to locate four palm trees which make the shape of a 'W' when a crow defecates on Adi. But Kabir arrives there and tells them to divide the money against them to which all agree. They dig there and are able to find the money. But again a fight ensues over the payment for the damage of the car. All are enraged when Adi and Manav decide to pay the money as one unit but are separate units while taking money. The fight goes on during which Kabir takes all the money and runs. He tries to escape in a hot air balloon on a beach but finds it tied to a pole. He dives in an effort to cut the rope but is beaten up by the rest who pursue him. The balloon blows off shore and all are disheartened.

Conditions change when the wind changes direction and the balloon again blows onshore. Night falls and they follow the balloon in a towing van. The balloon clashes against a pole and the bag falls down. All of them try to collect as much money as they can when suddenly some spot lights focus on them and a crowd cheers loudly behind them. Realizing that they are on a stage and the occasion is the charity event to be attended by the performing children who were with Kabir, they further learn about the pathetic condition of the orphaned kids who were to be honoured through charity, and decide to donate the money to the orphans.

The film ends on a happy note conveying that the fate of the money was already decided. It never belonged to the four friends. They were just a medium which helped the money reach its true destination.

• Sanjay Dutt as Inspector Kabir Naik
• Riteish Deshmukh as Deshbandhu Roy / Fake Kabir Naik
• Arshad Warsi as Aditya "Adi" Shrivastav
• Aashish Chaudhary as Boman Contractor
• Javed Jaffrey as Manav Shrivastav
• Asrani as Nari Contractor, Boman's eccentric father
• Sanjay Mishra as Babu Bhai a.k.a Atank ka Dusra Naam (Terror's second name)
• Sahil Chauhan as Kid Himesh Reshammiya
• Vijay Raaz as Dev Kumar Malik / D. K. Malik
• Manoj Pahwa as Pilot Amyjot Randhawa
• Tiku Talsania as Commissioner M.I. Chaturvedi
• Murli Sharma as Inspector Kulkarni
• Prem Chopra as Bose
• Suhasini Mulay as the Landlady
• Vijay Patkar as Air Traffic Controller
• Kiku Sharda as Constable
• Vinay Apte as Prabhakarnani Shripalavardhanani Attapatuni Jayasuriyai Laxmanai Shivramakrishnai Shivavenkati Rajashekhari Shrinivasani Trichipallani Yekkaparampeelani Perambuduruna Chinnaswamini Muthuswamini Venugopalani Iyeri
• Kurush Deboo as Dwivedi's son (Victim of Conmen's Fraud Painting)
• Ninad Kamat as Function Host
• Rana Jung Bahadur as Kailash the owner of the Dhaba
• Karmveer Choudhary in Kaiash Da Dhaba
• D. Santosh as Encounter Cop
• Vaibhav Mathur as Dacoit's man
• Vishwajeet Soni as Bengali Car Driver
• Jayesh Thakkar as Taxi Driver

The film's soundtrack is composed by Adnan Sami with lyrics penned by Sameer. The songs, "Dekho Dekho" and "Miss India Marthi Mujhpe", were both known as the title song, since the main chorus of both the songs included the title "Dhamaal".

A sequel named Double Dhamaal was released in 2011. The third film of the franchise was named Total Dhamaal and released in 2019. Both the films became huge box office hits.

• Dhamaal at IMDb 
• Dhamaal at Bollywood Hungama