‘Chor Machaaye Shor’ which means ‘Cry of A Thief’ revolves around Shyam a small time crook who gets his sticky hands on some diamonds worth millions. But before his arrest by the police squad, Shyam manages to hide the loot at a nearby construction site. After two years in prison, its time for Shyam to come out.Once again he happily returns to his buried loot. But to his horror he now finds that the site harbours a new police headquarters with his stolen diamonds forming part of the foundation! Not one to be easily defeated, Shyam devices a plan in order to get to the loot. He decides to play the role of inspector Ram and soon becomes the favourite of ACP Ranbir Singh (Paresh Rawal) at the police station. But life is not that easy going for our handsome crook who quickly gets under the suspicious nose of Inspector Pande (Om Puri). Amidst all this mayhem Ram actually finds time to romance Inspector Ranjita (Bipasha Basu). But he also plays the character of Shyam with Ranbir’s daughter, Komal (Shilpa Shetty). Soon they become lovers. Whilst Ram/ Shyam is busy with his hectic love life, other crooks, Tito (Ashish Vidhyarthi) and Tony (Rajat Bedi) have caught wind of the news and are now in search of the diamonds. Director David Dhawan for some odd reason seems to add other various sub-plots mainly to please the die hard comedy fans. This comes in the form of the famous Shekar Suman, the presenter of many Indian TV chat shows. Then there is a Tamil speaking dance master (Paresh Rawal) and Punjabi truck driver played by actor Om Puri in a double role. Actor Bobby Deol is at his comedic best, shuttling between both the characters with great ease and comfort. Both Shilpa Shetty and Bipasha Basu support well especially when it comes to adding glamour and glitz in Ram/Shyam’s life. Other co-stars like Om Puri, Paresh Rawal and Ashish Vidhyarthi are brilliant in their respective get-up scenes. They further enhance the comic situations presented by Ram/Shyam. The brilliant cinematography of Harmeet Singh is the highlight of the film. Musical score of Anu Maliik does match with the comic situations on screen. Overall director David Dhawan has included more than his fair share of laughter to please the cinema going masses. After all too much of a good thing can be very good!
Reviewed By Manish Gajjar, BBC Shropshire’s Mr Bollywood. | 
