Even maestros miss sometimes

Watching Dunki, feels that director Rajkumar Hirani has, at last, encountered a stumble in his illustrious career

KARACHI:

It is difficult to live up to the expectations of your audience and fans after impressing them with epic work. The responsibility is burdensome, but perhaps that’s why people create a fan base for creative maestros such as Rajkumar Hirani who has created a strong fan club across the globe. His style of storytelling, subjects that he selects for his films, how he makes actors dance to his tunes so that he pushes their boundaries as performers and his knack for bringing in eternally beautiful and unforgettable music.

Hirani’s films such as Munna Bhai MBBS, 3 Idiots, PK and Sanju have not only marked his mastery as a craftsman but have also made the characters of main leads of these movies memorable. Ditto for Shahrukh Khan; the year 2023 started with a bang, with films such asJawan and Pathan, King Khan proved that he is still the ‘box office’ king. With Dunki, the expectations of the audience and fans were huge. Let’s see what the movie had to offer to its auiences.

In the small village of Lalto, where dreams are scarce, the movie tells a story of hope, sacrifice, romance and friendship. Manu (Taapsee Pannu), Balli (Anil Grover), and Buggu(Vikram Kochhar) work hard at small jobs, dreaming of living a better life in England.

Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan) enters the scene, bringing inspiration to their dreams. Together, they join an English class with Geetu Gulati (Boman Irani), hoping to pass the IELTS exam for a chance to migrate to England.

Things get even more interesting when Sukhi (Vicky Kaushal) joins the group. His struggle to save someone he cares about becomes a powerful part of the story, but there's a catch – he can't speak English well enough to get a visa. The film highlights the ups and downs of pursuing dreams.

Performance wise, the movie has little to boast about. Most of the actors seem to be repeating their performances that they have previously showcased in their career, as though they have reached a saturation point for these roles and have nothing new to add to the characters they played.

Taapsee Pannu performs well but at places appeared to go overboard and was a tad predictable. Those who have watched Taapsee in intense characters and have followed her body of work can easily tell that she brings nothing new to the film. After Jawan and Pathan, Shahrukh Khan, is back with his usual charming persona. His diehard fans will love him repeating something that they have seen previously in this type of character. Also, the Punjabi diction is poor. The mannerism is not very much like a soldier (fauji). Right from his entry till the last scene, Shahrukh Khan looked like walking out of any of his Yash Raj sets and straight into the sets of Rajkumar Hirani – and this is where the mismatch happens.

Vicky Kaushal’s character is half-cooked but the actor impresses in his short-lived role. His performance is amongst the finest and most impressive one. The scene where he is shown as a drunkard reflects his immense talented as an actor. At places Kaushal is raw and that’s the beauty of his performance. If you watch him closely in the scene where he reminisces about his love interest in a state where he is completely drunk, it will remind you of the same Vicky Kaushal from ‘Masaan’ saying “Yeh dukh kaahay khatam nahin hota”. But for some reason, his character was abruptly wrapped up with a scene that is hard to digest. Sukhi’s (Vicky Kaushal) character is a trademark character from Rajkumar Hirani’s universe, it is same as of Zaheer (Jimmy Shergill)), Joy Lobo (Ali Fazal) and Bhairao Singh (Sanjay Dutt) from Munna Bhai MBBS, 3 Idiots and PK respectively. But the character has not been treated as well as any of the above-mentioned ones.

Vikram Kochhar is a brilliant actor and those who have seen him in multiple webseries likeChoona, Rakhtanchal, Inside Edge, and Aashram know how talented he is, but in Dunki he is wasted. Ditto for Boman Irani, he has no scope in his character which is insipid. The rest of the actors also fail to make any impact.

The premise of Dunki is shaky. The logic on which the movie is based is frail and does not justify the acts of the characters by any means. For instance, Shahrukh Khan plays a soldier who comes to Laltu to return a tape recorder and meet the guy who saved his life. After finding out the truth, he stays in Laltu to help his saviours’ younger sister to migrate to London. For a moment, all the logic takes a backseat as the soldier, finds it more important to help her migrate by hook or crook to London rather than returning to his base to serve his country. And what is more ridiculous is that the law-abiding soldier helps them in opting to migrate illegally — again this cannot be justified by any means.

There are scenes which are forced and preachy. The scene where Shahrukh Khan raises questions regarding British-men entering India without any visa or other documentations might sound emotional, but it cannot connect with the laws and regulations laid after that time. It felt like such an unnecessarily and irrelevant rant. Such justifications are baseless. Oris the filmmaker implying that moving abroad illegally is something that should be made acceptable?

In another scene, Shahrukh Khan acts as a complete hooligan in the Church where TaapseePannu is shown getting married to a resident, so she could legally settle in London. For a grown-up man it looked very awkward and disrespectful to create such a scene in the Holy place for Christians. King Khan is shown petrifying the monk to a level that he locks himself in the confession box — if that’s the kind of ‘funny’ scenes you enjoy, you will probably love the movie.

The court drama is again very boring and predictable. The unneeded essence of patriotism is showered where it was not required. The makeup and the VFX in the film are super off. Shahrukh Khan’s younger and older self both are hard to believe when it comes to looks. His body posture is almost the same. Same for Taapsee Pannu.

The music and background score of Dunki is good. Two songs Lut Put and Nikle The Kabhieare very well composed, written and sung. It won’t be wrong to say that the entire soul of the movie lies in Nikle The Kabhie sung by Sonu Nigam, the song is soulfully sung by him and offers some great lyrics.

The movie leaves its audience with so many questions, a few are mentioned here. Why Vicky Kaushal’s character required an IELTS when he could have just gone on a visit visa, he was supposed to bring back his love. Why Hardy didn’t return to base after getting deported to India and served army? Why did he stay in Laltu for he wasn’t doing any welfare work for the residents of Laltu by any chance. Why was Boman Irani’s character so shallow? There are many other questions that come across at the climax but answers are nowhere to be found.

On the whole, this venture is a lost opportunity to create a foundation of a strong relationship between Rajkumar Hirani and Shahrukh Khan – the film is easily amongst the weakest of Hirani works on all fronts. It misses the peculiarity or Hirani’s universe. After watching this film, it feels like a relief that Shahrukh Khan couldn’t continue with Munnabhai MBBS and the titular lead was given to Sanjay Dutt, else the film wouldn’t have created such an impact and become a cult-classic. Watch it only if you are a Shahrukh Khan fan, if you are a Hirani fan, you will be royally disappointed with Dunki.

Based on weak script, below average performances and hard to digest justifications – the movie gets 2 out of 5 stars.

 

Shafiq Ul Hasan Siddiqui is an avid movie buff, and film and drama critic and a digital inbound marketer. He tweets as www.twitter.com/shafiqulhasan81. All information and facts are the responsibility of the writer

 

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer