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Churning out more slapstick per annum than the entire back catalogue of the Marx Brothers, director Priydarshan obviously favours quantity over quality. After lumbering audiences with recent flops like Bhagam Bhag and Malamaal Weekly, he returns with Dhol, another pointless Bollywood farce. Tushar Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Rajpal Yadav and Kunal Khemu play a motley group of friends who get more chills than thrills, when they compete to win the hand of a local rich girl. This is a clich茅d comedy for the boys and not much else.

With no dhol (drum) in sight till the finale, one wonders why Priyadarshan named his film so. But that's just one of many senseless things in Dhol, mostly going on in the lives of Sam (Tusshar Kapoor), Pakkya (Sharman Joshi), Maru (Rajpal Yadav) and Goti (Kunal Khemu). When these four good-for-nothings aren't busy spitting and rubbing chilli into each others eyes, they dream of making it big with the least effort possible. Spotting a get rich quick solution in wealthy new neighbour, Ritu (Tanushree Dutta), the gang set out individually to woo and marry her, only to end up discovering a chilling truth.

"ZERO POINTS FOR ORIGINALITY"

Inspired by the 1992 Hindi flop Parda Hai Parda, which in turn was a remake of the Malayalam film Harihar Nagar, Dhol scores zero points for originality. Losers usually make good viewing, especially when played by naturally gifted comic actors like Kapoor, Joshi and Yadav. But this time round the funny guys generate only a handful of laughs. Blame lies not in their zany performances but Manisha Korde's juvenile screenplay, which fails to deliver a comic thriller full of hilarious twists and turns. It seems as if Priyadarshan has finally lost his sense of humour with this one.

Dhol (Drum) (2007) is out in the UK on 21st September 2007.