- Release Date:21/12/2023
- Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Taapsee Pannu, Vikram Kochhar, Anil Grover, Vicky Kaushal
- Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Oscillating Between Humor and Longing, “Dunki” Marks Rajkumar Hirani’s Weakest Effort Since “Sanju”
Manu (Taapsee Pannu), a spirited girl from Laltu, Punjab, is working hard to somehow save her house from a moneylender who has apparently usurped a large chunk of it and has forced Manu and her family to live in only a small portion of their own property. She has little education and has been trying odd jobs to make ends meet, but it never proves to be enough to pay back her debt to the moneylender. She believes that the best solution to her financial woes is to make her way to England where she can earn in pounds and save her house.
Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) hates watching his mother work as a security guard and wear pants instead of a salwar kameez after his father becomes incapable of working. He too believes that earning in pounds will help him have enough money to save himself from the indignation of watching his mother being ogled at by the older folks of Laltu. Balli (Anil Grover), a barber in Laltu, has had enough of his job and his mother toiling away at the sewing machine. He desperately wants to move to England in search of a better life. Sukhi, a diehard romantic, is forced to live in unbearable pain when the girl of his dreams is married off to an NRI forcefully, and then the NRI starts abusing her in England. The girl reaches out to Sukhi to come and save her failing which she will die. Sukhi is desperate to somehow go to England and bring back the love of his life.
While these simple and spirited folks try every trick in the book to somehow land a visa to England, they realise that the biggest challenge standing between them and their respective visas is their poverty and their lack of knowledge of English. It is at this juncture that Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan) walks into their lives, and nothing remains the same again. Will the simple village folks be able to get to England? What sacrifices will they have to make? Will their dreams come true? Why is Hardy so keen on helping them? These are some of the questions that drive the narrative of “Dunki”.
I went into “Dunki” with an open mind and wanted to enjoy the elements that are a standard staple of every Rajkumar Hirani film. Sadly, I have to admit that this is easily Hirani’s weakest film in terms of the emotional core, impact of the drama, organic and enjoyable comedy, and most importantly, the quantum of importance and seriousness of the plight of the people involved in the story and the drama.
Forced comedy that didn’t work for me:
The entire first half of the film is riddled with forced comedy that didn’t work at any level for me. Rajkumar Hirani is a master of situational comedy, and his writing of films like “Munna Bhai” and even the ill-intentioned “PK” still works for me. The comedic elements in these films were a product of organic situations that were inspired by real life and had an element of surprise and quirk to them. In “Dunki,” Hirani tries to make us laugh by pointing a gun to our heads and bludgeoning us with situations that in no way are funny and are so predictable that I was able to predict the next line of dialogue that would come out of the characters. There wasn’t a single genuine laugh-out-loud moment in the first half, and it was mostly all comedy in this portion. This immediately made my experience of the film boring as there was very little to keep me interested in this portion.
Another huge negative impact that the comedy has on this portion is that it never lets the true dread, torment, and urgency of the predicament of the characters that is forcing them to go to England develop or turn impactful. This not only reduces the impact of all that we see in the second half, but it never lets us connect with the characters at a deeper level enabling us to feel the pain and the torture of these characters that they subjected themselves to by uprooting themselves from their motherland and moving to a different country. The first half destroys the sense of urgency and craze of these characters to get back to India later, and hence the ending of the film is never able to extract the kind of emotions that it needs to or that Rajkumar Hirani is known for.
The second half feels totally different from the first and has some impact:
The second half of the film does draw our attention to some of the more astute and successful aspects of the film. This entire portion is dedicated to the ensemble cast making their way to England, spending a lifetime there, and finally realizing that they have wasted their lives in a land that is not their own. There are elements like Hardy’s lecture on Visa and open borders and conversations between characters about people who venture out of their country to seek employment elsewhere that felt almost caricaturish and hilarious at times, but I still played along.
These were the portions where the performance of Shah Rukh Khan and Taapsee Pannu takes centre stage and to a great extent captures our imagination and lets us for once connect with the proceedings of the film. However, it is not enough to have the kind of impact that was needed to make the film special. The last 10-15 minutes of the film have its best comedy, and this is also the most heartfelt portion of the film that was carefully constructed and even better acted by Shah Rukh Khan and Taapsee Pannu. The chemistry between the two reminded me of portions from Veer Zara and in the best possible way. Their performances added a lot to a delightful but undercooked romance that could have been so much better. Shah Rukh Khan once again rises above his age and makes his chemistry with Taapsee feel real and effective.
The performances in the film are average with a few moments of brilliance here and there:
If you take out the chemistry between Shah Rukh and Taapsee, there is very little in terms of the performance to boast about in the film, and it is not because of the inefficiency of the actors but because of how limited their characters are rendered by the constrictive and cliched writing of Hirani. This was a shocking realization for me as I was of the opinion that this film would make a bigger impact because of its story and screenplay. The great Boman Irani is terribly wasted in a character that was one of the loudest in the film and that hammed through most of its sequences. Vicky Kaushal in a cameo performs well, but his character is written so poorly, and the predicament of the character is given so little time and logic to develop that the way the character’s arc is culminated left me without any feeling about him. This character should have been heart-breaking and played on our psyche through the second half of the film, but it doesn’t. Vikram Kochhar and Anil Grover as the other important supporting characters are there just to stick around and never assume any importance or make a mark for themselves in the scheme of things.
If you can ignore the cringe and unnecessary comedy that is forced upon him, Shah Rukh Khan really comes into his own in the second half. He is a master of creating impact with emotions and a foreboding feeling of loss, as this has been his forte for years. He puts his best foot forward and creates ripples in key moments. I absolutely loved his speech in the British court, even though most of the logic of this speech was hilarious and ill-paced. His final moments with Taapsee Pannu were also wonderful and underlined the power of the actor when it comes to romance and creating impact with it. Taapsee is Taapsee, and she is once again cast as a character we have seen her play many times before. However, in Shah Rukh’s company, she is able to rise above her way of playing a character to the predefined standards and expectations and is able to transfer the tragedy, quirk, strength, weakness, and longing of the character to the audience. This was easily her best performance in years.
The storytelling style and direction are average at best:
Everything about the style of the storytelling, including the background music and the songs, will remind you of better Rajkumar Hirani films. He has a habit of using background narration of characters in the film to forward the story, and that is something that is very present here. It was supposed to aid the storytelling, but instead, it makes the storytelling feel monotonous and as if we were being fed material that the director could have portrayed through performances and creativity. I was absolutely not okay with Hirani’s direction, as he should have known better how poorly the first half of the film developed. He should have also sensed how ineffective and forced the comedy felt and how Boman Irani and Shah Rukh Khan along with the others were hamming through their respective essays. The entire “Dunki” experience that should have been the core of the film was glossed over in one song. Maybe Hirani should have thought of a better way to present this critical portion of the film emphasizing more on the dangers, tragedy and exasperating nature of the journey.
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Most importantly, unlike most of Hirani’s previous films, “Dunki” fails to create any emotional connection and doesn’t leave a substantial impact on the quantum of tragedy and misery that befell the characters of the film. This was the biggest discrepancy from the director that absolutely destroyed the film for me and rendered it unequivocally boring. The film is 160 minutes long, and in that runtime, I often thought about checking my phone and looking here and there. This is not a masala potboiler, and hence the only way the director could have kept his audiences hooked was with intriguing storytelling, gripping characters and haunting drama. Rajkumar Hirani failed in all these counts for me.
Final Words:
“Dunki” falls short of the expectations set by Rajkumar Hirani’s previous works. While the second half manages to salvage some impact with sincere performances from Shah Rukh Khan and Taapsee Pannu, the forced comedy in the initial portion dilutes the urgency and gravity of the characters’ predicaments. The film struggles to create an emotional connection, and the underdeveloped supporting cast adds to the overall mediocrity. Despite glimpses of brilliance, particularly in Shah Rukh Khan’s performance, the film fails to deliver the depth and resonance expected from a Hirani project. “Dunki” may entertain in parts, but it lacks the cohesive storytelling and compelling characters that have been the hallmark of the director’s earlier successes.
Rating: 2/5 (2 out of 5 Stars)
The views expressed in this article are that of the reviewer and do not reflect EastMojo’s position.
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