directorhriday shettycast naseeruddin shah kay kay menon ravi kishan atul kulkarni it would really take some effort to mess up a film starring four supremely talented actors in lead roles an uninspiring script and a dreary director work overtime to achieve such lackluster results at the outset chaalis chauraasi looks promising with its atypical cast and chronicle but the onedimensional plot fails to tap the immense potential of both four policemen are on night patrol duty in their van but soon it turns out that the cops are actually crooks bobby atul kulkarni is a pimp pinto kay kay menon a car thief and shakti ravi kishan a drug peddler sir naseeruddin shah gets them together for a big loot worth rs 20 crores for their covert mission they rob a police van and pose as cops until they encounter a real encounterspecialist rajesh sharma enroute the basic premise sounds interesting enough but the actual culprit of this crimecomedy is yashvinays humdrum writing that fails to excite after the initial reels each character is individually introduced through episodes that excite only intermittently and the film takes too long to come to point once it does it again strays into some haywire underworld encounter and when it finally arrives at the climax it keeps beating around the bush quite literally the primary plotline eventuates over the span of one night but director hriday shetty fails to keep the proceedings eventful with the singletrack storytelling getting repetitive after a while one expects more momentous moments like say the similar onenight setting film ek chaalis ki last local but chaalis chauraasi doesnt even come close moreover the narrative cuts into frequent flashbacks so the onenight setting doesnt quite register the maledominated drama could have easily done without a female character and forcing shweta bhardwaj in the plot was absolutely avoidable also having three tiresome item songs in quick succession is surely not a sane idea for a thriller flick and when the director is at loss of anything original or intelligent in the end he opts for a painfully slapstick climax the dialogues are trite editing is lousy and music is enervating how one wishes hriday shetty would have put his impressive cast to better use over making them sing and dance needlessly and hopelessly at the drop of a hat neither does he have a great story at hands nor the prowess to extract effective acts from his cast so everyone from naseeruddin shah kay kay menon ravi kishan and atul kulkarni remain underutilized and fail to rise above the middling scriptchaalis chauraasi can be used as a casestudy example on how good actors can go awry in the hands of mediocre writers and directors be alert next timeverdict average