Why? That’s the question that nags you throughout the 161-minute runtime of Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki, which focuses on the problem of illegal immigration. If it is about ekeing out a better living to help their families, why is the big dream London and not Mumbai or Delhi, or Dubai or Singapore, for that matter? Why does ex-army soldier Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan) throw in his lot with three friends — Mannu (Taapsee Pannu), Balli (Anil Grover) and Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) — even though he hardly knows them? Why, if the film is about throwing a light on the dangers of illegal immigration, does it gloss over the hard parts?
Hirani has made it an art to deliver tough and pertinent social messages through lighthearted comedy, and Dunki — his first collaboration with Shah Rukh — is no different, except that the premise is so flimsy that it is hard to feel invested in either the theme or the individual characters.
In a small village in Punjab, three friends — Mannu, Balli and Buggu — dream of living and earning in London. But they have neither the means nor the wherewithal to make it happen, and look for any means necessary to crack it. It’s only when a fourth, Hardy, joins their quest that Dunki finds some direction, thanks to the sheer star power of the man who takes charge of these three hapless souls and keeps the film going with his energy alone.
Neither Mannu nor Balli or Buggu’s needs feel dire enough to generate sympathy when they don’t manage to secure their UK visas — the path to those bungled deals and failed interviews are paved with many light, comic moments, Raju Hirani-style, but even these feel a little flat. It’s even harder to understand Hardy’s motivation. Love for Mannu may be a valid reason, but the tepid chemistry between Shah Rukh and Pannu is far from convincing as a love for which one would want to transcend borders.
Despite the first half of the film trying to establish the main characters and exploring connections between the four friends — there are some genuinely nice moments between the four — the only thing that makes an impression is the fifth guy, Sukhi, made memorable by a strongly-written character arc and an ace performance by Vicky Kaushal.
The second half of Dunki sees the four friends embarking on the ‘dunki’ — a mispronunciation of the word donkey — route to England. We see the group travelling through hostile terrain where they are shot at and threatened with rape; some even lose their lives. We are shown glimpses of the inhuman conditions illegal immigrants have to live in, not just in transit but even once they reach the promised land. But it is all quickly glossed over, as if problems that cannot be turned into a lighthearted moment need to be stuffed into a single montage. Thankfully, the film takes a pause to call out the ills of false self-promotion, which encourages more young people to risk the dunki route.
The film then just gives up all semblance of reality with naive dialogues about how all land belongs to everyone and how birds don’t need visas, the clincher being an immigration judge in the UK urging the four — Mannu, Balli, Buggu and Hardy — to claim asylum. Shah Rukh gets yet another patriotic moment this year when he stands tall in front of the judge and refuses to say that he was under threat in his own country, choosing to be deported instead. The love of his life, for whom he undertook the dunki journey in the first place, however, has no such qualms and settles abroad.
The climax continues along the ‘far from reality’ trajectory and undermines character motives even further, leaving us with a film that is really hard to care about. It is definitely not the high note SRK would have liked to close out a year that has been simply off the charts.
