Golmaal Again

Golmaal Again ( transl.  Hotchpotch again) is a 2017 Bollywood Hindi-language action comedy film  co-produced and directed by Rohit Shetty, and written by Sajid-Farhad and Yunus Sajawal. The film stars Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Tushar Kapoor, Kunal Khemu, Shreyas Talpade, Parineeti Chopra, Tabu, Johnny Lever, Prakash Raj and Neil Nitin Mukesh in the lead roles while Mukesh Tiwari, Sanjay Mishra, Vrajesh Hirjee, Murali Sharma, Vijay Patkar, Uday Tikekar, Sachin Khedekar, Ashwini Kalsekar are featured in supporting roles and Nana Patekar makes a special appearance as himself.

Golmaal Again is the fourth installment of the Golmaal franchise. Production of the film began in July 2016. Chopra signed to play the female lead after Kareena Kapoor opted out of the film because of her pregnancy. Principal photography took place from March to July 2017. Produced on a budget of ₹720 million (US$10 million), the film was theatrically released on 20 October 2017.

Upon release, the film met with mixed critical reviews, but broke several box-office records earning over ₹1 billion (US$14 million) in just 3 days of collection. It grossed ₹3.11 billion (US$44 million) worldwide in its whole theatrical run to become one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time and the fifth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2017. Golmaal Again ran for more than 50 days in theatres.

Plot
Gopal (Ajay Devgan) who is afraid of ghosts, Madhav (Arshad Warsi), Lucky (Tushar Kapoor) who cannot speak, Laxman (Kunal Khemu) and Laxman (Shreyas Talpade) who has a speech impediment are orphans living in an orphanage in Ooty managed by a businessman named Jamnadas (Uday Tikekar). One night, the boys find a baby girl at their entrance and take her in, naming her Khushi. They take care of her and are also aware of librarian Anna's (Tabu) ability to see ghosts and spirits. One day, when Madhav pranks and scares the timid Gopal in an empty bungalow, a fight ensues between the boys. Gopal gets punished, which prompts Gopal and Laxman to leave the orphanage and soon, Madhav, Lucky and Laxman also do the same. Khushi is later adopted by a colonel and his wife.

Some years later, Gopal and Laxman work with Babli Bhai (Sanjay Mishra) and Madhav, Lucky and Laxman work with Vasooli Bhai (Mukesh Tiwari). The group reunites after learning about Jamnadas' demise. Returning to the orphanage after 25 years, they meet colonel, Anna and Pappi (Johnny Lever) another orphan from the orphanage who has frequent memory loss. They meet a girl (Parineeti Chopra) who they think is the bungalow's caretaker, Damini and learn about the demise of the colonel's daughter. At an event after Jamnadas' funeral, businessman Vasu Reddy (Prakash Raj) reveals the orphanage would be demolished and moved elsewhere in plans to make his own building. When the group leaves the orphanage and returns, a ghost possesses Laxman and talks in Nana Patekar's voice which scares Gopal. Next, the ghost possesses Madhav and prompts Vasooli to give them a task, indirectly bringing the three back to Ooty. A scared Gopal calls Anna who reveals that there is a spirit in their house and suggests him and Laxman to move to the colonel's house. Upon reaching Ooty the two groups start fighting each other out of anger. The three try to scare Gopal into leaving the house but Gopal gets possessed and beats Lucky and Laxman badly. Later, Vasu Reddy assigns Madhav, Lucky and Laxman to burn down the colonel's house. But things go awry when Lucky gets possessed by the spirit and starts talking which scares the group. The two groups then decide to leave but Anna and Damini convince them to stay for the birthday celebration and the group makes amends. The four find that Gopal has fallen in love with Damini and force him to confess his feelings. Pappi arrives and reveals that the girl they thought was Damini is actually Colonel's daughter who is dead while the real Damini is his girlfriend. The boys get terrified and try to escape the house along with Pappi, Babli Bhai and Vasooli Bhai after Damini confesses it herself. Anna arrives and stops them and explains them that the ghost is none other than their childhood friend Khushi.

A flashback narrated by Khushi explains how her boyfriend, Nikhil Surana (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young businessman, killed Jamnadas in order to obtain the orphanage in his name and demolish it for the construction of a site. Upon confronting him and threatening to go the police, Khushi was strangled to death by Nikhil. With the help of Vasu Reddy, he managed to prove the killings to be accidents. However, Khushi's spirit came for help to Anna, who was surprised that the boys could see Khushi and eventually brought them to the house to help get justice for Khushi.

Back to present, Gopal thrashes the goons sent by Vasu Reddy while the rest of the boys, who wanted to stay away from the matter, get emotionally convinced to stay. They convince Gopal to stop chasing the goons and later almost manage to scare Vasu into confessing the truth, but Nikhil arrives before they can and reveals there's no evidence to prove him guilty. This leads to a fight, during which Khushi attacks and nearly kills Nikhil but is calmed down by Anna, and Vasu convinces Nikhil to confess. With the orphanage saved, Khushi's spirit departs to heaven after bidding goodbye to the boys and Anna.

Cast

 * Ajay Devgn as Gopal
 * Tabu as Anna Matthew
 * Parineeti Chopra as Khushi Bansal / fake Damini Jaisingh
 * Arshad Warsi as Madhav
 * Tushar Kapoor as Lucky
 * Kunal Khemu as Laxman/2
 * Shreyas Talpade as Laxman/1
 * Neil Nitin Mukesh as Nikhil Surana
 * Johnny Lever as Pappi Bhai
 * Prakash Raj as Vasu Reddy
 * Mukesh Tiwari as Vasooli
 * Sanjay Mishra as Babli
 * Vrajesh Hirjee as Pandu
 * Murali Sharma as Inspector Mukesh Dande
 * Vijay Patkar as Constable Gandhari
 * Uday Tikekar as Jamnadas Bansal
 * Sachin Khedekar as Colonel Chauhan
 * Ashwini Kalsekar as Damini Jaisingh
 * Nana Patekar as himself; voice of ghost
 * Mohan Ram as a ghost

Development
In July 2016, Ajay Devgn and Rohit Shetty announced Golmaal 4, the fourth instalment of Golmaal marking the completion of ten years of the first Golmaal (2006).

Casting
Among the previous cast of the Golmaal series, actors Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor and Kunal Khemu were included in this installment. However, Kareena Kapoor was replaced by Parineeti Chopra in November 2016 after the former declined the part owing to her pregnancy. In late January 2017, Tabu was signed in for a crucial role. In February 2017, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Prakash Raj were signed for the film.

Filming
Principal photography commenced on 9 March 2017 in Mumbai at Yash Raj Studios. The Mumbai schedule was wrapped on 2 April 2017.

Themes
On 18 October, the theme song "Itna Sannata Kyu Hai" was released.

Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics with praise for its humour and performances and criticism for its flaws in the technical aspects. Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave the film 3.5 stars and stated that the film is full of laughs with no substance. Raja Sen of NDTV gave the film 2 stars, stating that Golmaal Again is "a marginally better film than Golmaal 3 or Golmaal Returns" but felt the film was too long. Rajeev Masand of News 18 gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said, "Mercifully no cars are spun around like tops and exploded this time around, but the characters repeatedly bandy about the film's message like a disclaimer, as if warning you not to expect any more than they promise to deliver: “No logic, only magic.” Logic indeed is in short supply here, and frankly the real magic the filmmakers conjure up is the ability to keep this franchise on the road for all these years with such minimal creative investment."

Box office
On its opening day, Golmaal Again grossed ₹30.10 crore net, one of the highest openings for a Bollywood film in 2017. The film collected ₹28.25 on the second day. The third day's collection was ₹28.5 crore. On the fourth day, the film collected ₹15.25 crore, taking the total collections to ₹102.85 crore. On the fifth day, the film collected ₹13.25 crore. The sixth day's collection of the film was ₹10.5 crore.

By the end of the first week, the film grossed ₹135 crore. The third week's gross was ₹1974 million. Golmaal Again grossed ₹200 crore after four weeks of its release in Indian box office. The film grossed US$3 million in its first weekend in overseas. The film grossed $160,000 in Nepal, and $400,000 in Pakistan in the first weekend. The worldwide collection of the film was ₹3 billion in its fourth week. Also it is the highest-grossing Indian film in Fiji. The film became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2017 Until Tiger Zinda Hai broke its record in 2017. Golmaal Again ran in cinemas for more than 50 days in India.

Soundtrack
The music of the film have been composed by Amaal Mallik, S. Thaman, Lijo George-DJ Chetas and Abhishek Arora while the lyrics of the film have been penned by Kumaar. The first track of the film titled as "Golmaal (Title Track)" sung by Brijesh Shandilya and Aditi Singh Sharma was released on 23 September 2017. The second track of the film "Neend Churai Meri" from the 1997 film Ishq has been recreated to "Maine Tujhko Dekha" for this film in the voices of Neeraj Shridhar and Sukriti Kakar and was released on 29 September 2017. The soundtrack was released on 6 October 2017 by T-Series.

All lyrics are written by Kumaar.

Release
20 October 2017 was announced as release date of the film, coinciding with Diwali.