There is quite a bit about Dunki that makes it instantly identifiable as a Rajkumar Hirani film. It has humour, it is heartwarming and it has many moments of heartbreak. It also has a distinct word which, in Hirani’s universe, could also be a phrase. Like ‘Aal is well’ in 3 Idiots, ‘Jadoo ki jhappi’ in Munna Bhai MBBS, ‘Wrong number’ in PK, ‘Question mark’ in Sanju... the word in Dunki is the film’s title. In its literal sense, ‘dunki’ means the illegal way in which immigrants cross geographical borders in their quest for a better life. In Dunki, it means the opposite — as Shah Rukh Khan’s Hardy says, pretty late into the 161-minute film — “Dunki ka asli matlab hain apno se duur rehna.”
Dunki talks about the dichotomous feelings we all face — the burning ambition to leave home and hearth for better opportunities millions of miles away and the pang of fear and regret that accompanies it, realising we may not be able to make our way back for many years, if at all. Even if we do, things will never be the same again.
Hirani and co-writers Abhijat Joshi and Kanika Dhillon expand that idea to focus on a group of misfits in the tiny hamlet of Laltu in Punjab — where the decision to make a living in a foreign land is dictated more by economic necessity than anything else. Banding them together is a former soldier, who makes the journey from Pathankot to Laltu for half a day and then stays on for the next 25 years.
Hardayal Singh Dhillon aka Hardy has SRK befriending three Laltu residents who have the same goal — to somehow make it to London. Manu (Taapsee Pannu) needs to wrest her home back, Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover) don’t want their mothers to ever work again. But getting to London requires money or a degree or a serviceable knowledge of English, which the trio doesn’t have. When tragedy strikes a friend in the face of failure, Hardy takes it upon himself to get the three across the border (actually, many, many borders) as they illegally make their way — through hardships of weather and barrages of bullets — to their idea of a dreamland.
Meshing mirth with a message and appealing to the head along with the heart has been Rajkumar Hirani’s forte. Dunki has both effort and intent, but somehow large parts of it don’t come together as a cohesive whole. The first half, aided by Shah Rukh’s dimpled charm that shines through even from under some woefully average de-ageing technology, sails through on the back of some genuinely hilarious moments, with Hirani favourite Boman Irani popping in as a character — with the motto ‘Birmingham here I come’ — who makes a fortune teaching rather questionable English to his gullible visa-dreaming aspirants. A cameo from Vicky Kaushal as Sukhi, a young man who has to get to London for a life-or-death reason, is the highlight of Half One, and to be quite honest, of Dunki as a whole.
The post-interval portions, however, turn out to be a bit of a slog. His films have taken a jibe at hospitals, education systems, places of worship, the media news cycle and more, and in Dunki, Hirani trains his lens on the immigration system. Why should the visa process discriminate and only come down heavily on the poor and uneducated, Hirani demands to know, as the last few moments of Dunki show real-life images of immigrants crossing land and sea, only to come out of the exercise dead or half-dead. It is a question that stirs both thought and conscience, but for most of Half Two, the Hirani staples of garbing a message or a concept in entertainment are missing in Dunki.
That is a big letdown because Hirani’s brand of cinema has made us willingly suspend disbelief for far more, including the idea that a student (even if it is the all-knowing Aamir Khan) can deliver a baby using a vacuum cleaner. In Dunki, the journey across borders — Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey — is fraught with danger and death, horror and heartbreak, but very little of it leaves the kind of heart-in-the-mouth, lump-in-the-throat impact it should have.
Also, the film’s contrarian stance of swearing undying love for one’s country and yet wanting to leave it by risking everything from life to love, comes off as unconvincing. After Pathaan and Jawan, Dunki projects SRK’s character (which is SRK himself) as a man who embraces his country, warts and all, but unlike those two vastly entertaining blockbusters where the moment was met with both claps and cheers and a whole lot of reading-between-the-lines commentary later, the one in Dunki simply passes without registering much impact.
Also, its runtime — about 20 minutes short of three hours — goes against Dunki (Hirani also takes editing credits in this film), which gets repetitive after a point and will start to remind you of other Bollywood films. Shah Rukh Khan’s Veer-Zaara is a good one that pops into one’s head, but Arjun Kapoor’s Namaste England (good on you if you haven’t even heard of it) isn’t.
What also doesn’t help is the fact that the romance between Hardy and Manu isn’t allowed enough time to simmer for the viewer to invest in it. Taapsee knows a thing or two about playing Punjabi characters and she does well (though the make-up 25 years later makes her look like she’s aged 50 years more), but the chemistry between the two leads is far from crackling.
In the end, SRK’s more-than-sincere performance, punctuated with genuine feel, his undisputed stardom, the zeal among his fans to make it a hattrick of blockbusters and the Hirani brand name will undoubtedly pull viewers to cinemas. But Dunki could have been so much more. Walk in, but keep expectations low.
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