Dasvi is a confounding film. It aims to be a satire but oscillates so much between tongue-in-cheek and self-serious, that it’s tough to figure what exactly the film wants to do, say or be. That results in an uneven watch punctuated with abrupt contrivances, convenient cop-outs and a jarring, jumpy narrative. The laughs are there all right, so are the messages tucked in here and there, but they somehow get lost in the larger mess of this film.

Which is disappointing because Dasvi has an interesting idea at its core. Corrupt politicians in India are a dime-a-dozen and we have one in the form of Ganga Ram Chaudhary (Abhishek A. Bachchan, with the ‘A’ now significant, with dad Amitabh declaring him as his ‘true heir’ on social media a few days ago). Chaudhury is the chief minister of Harit Pradesh — which could be either Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, or for that matter any Indian state — who is put behind bars on corruption charges. He walks into a swanky ‘cell’ specially readied for him, but not before plonking his meek wife Bimla (Nimrat Kaur) on the CM’s chair, with the intention of continuing to pull the administrative strings from inside the jail.

But things don’t really pan out as per Chaudhury’s plans. Not only does he have to contend with a tough-as-nails jail superintendent (played by Yami Gautam Dhar), but even the once subservient Bimla, now drunk on political power and out of the larger-than-life dominating shadow of her husband, turns truant. In the middle of all this, the boorish Chaudhury, an eighth-grade passout, suddenly discovers the importance of education, and decides to prepare for his Class 10 exams — hence the name Dasvi — while in prison.

Debutant director Tushar Jalota, operating out of a script written by Ritesh Shah, Suresh Nair, Sandeep Leyzell and Ram Bajpai, gets the initial paces right but with Dasvi aspiring to be too many things at once — there is commentary on caste discrimination, corruption, gender bias, red tapism and even dyslexia — what we get is a hodge-podge which ultimately adds up to very little.

There are some nice touches though. Like Chaudhury flipping through the pages of history and imagining himself to be a part of it, in sequences that will remind you of both Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Rang De Basanti. The songs, however, pop up pretty abruptly and with none of them being memorable enough, bog the narrative down even more.

Abhishek has always been a sincere performer and here, he plunges headlong into the part in walk and talk, with an almost pitch-perfect Haryanvi accent. But his character is underwritten, while Yami is saddled with one which is too one-note. Yami, the effortless actor that she is, manages to rise above the part, but only to a certain extent.

The real show-stealer, in what is clearly briefer screen time than her co-stars, is Nimrat, who is a hoot in her part and clearly deserved a better film. Someone give this girl an out-and-out comedy part already!

Dasvi is streaming on Netflix and JioCinema

Dasvi

Director: Tushar Jalota

Cast: Abhishek A. Bachchan, Yami Gautam Dhar, Nimrat Kaur, Manu Rishi Chaddha

Running time: 125 minutes