Dunki Movie Cast & Crew
In an early scene in Dunki, an overweight woman asks for a small-size outfit, and the salesman mocks her, saying that the dress she wants won’t even fit her finger! I shrank back, horrified at the fat-shaming, the misogyny… Wait, wait, wait. For a second, I thought I was reviewing another film by another director. But this is a film by the gentle, much-beloved Rajkumar Hirani. So let me start all over again. In an early scene in Dunki, an overweight woman asks for a small-size outfit, and the salesman mocks her, saying that the dress she wants won’t even fit her finger! The audience around me laughed loud at this broad, old-style comedy. How lovely! After all, in these tough times, the Lord knows that we need a few laughs. Or many. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist!)
Dunki is about illegal immigration. It’s about the lines from the song in Refugee: “Panchhi nadiyan pawan ke jhonke / koi sarhad na inhe roke”. In other words, birds and rivers and the wind are not bound by the borders that divide nations. So why should people not be free to go wherever they want? And at the end, we see horrifying images of people trying desperately to flee their home countries, because of war or famine or whatever reason. But watching the first half of Dunki you’d hardly guess that we are in for any of this. Because the screenplay (which Hirani co-wrote with Abhijat Joshi and Kanika Dhillon) is filled with the spirit of the Mary Poppins song: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” And we get heaps and heaps of sugar, in the form of very broad humour.
And depending on your fondness for Rajkumar Hirani’s brand of humour, you may find the first half somewhat bearable. I think this director made two bona fide classics in the two Munna Bhai movies (especially the second one) – but his output after that has left me hot and cold. I did smile/laugh at some of the jokes. I felt a bit with the National Anthem was pulled off rather cheekily – and courageously. (I don’t think anyone but this filmmaker would have gotten away with this joke.) The gag built around the two-minute speech for the IELTS exam is pure genius. And it keeps paying off. But this “fun” portion lasts so long that it becomes the dominant mood of the film, and the drama that follows never lands convincingly.
Because we do not get moments and scenes that dig deep into the lives of these characters, neither the “dunki” journey from Punjab to England nor the “dunki” journey from England to Punjab is effective. The screenplay feels random and loose. It seems to have been written with the idea that a movie should always be bright and buoyant, and not even a rape scene makes you worry for these people. No one seems to be in any real danger. Vicky Kaushal gives as committed a performance one can give in a ten-minute role, but his angst does not come through. His mini-arc feels like a mechanical plot device, something “constructed”, something contrived – rather than seeming organic. The action scenes don’t work either. An underwater moment and a shootout are so randomly staged – with so little cinematic energy – that you realise why Rajkumar Hirani has never gone into the action zone earlier. It just doesn’t seem to be his thing.
“We never asked the British Raj if they could speak our languages when they came here…” “I send fake photos home so that my family will not know how bad my life is in England…” “I am a soldier and I will not lie about my country…” These are solid melodramatic situations, but the only thing that works is Shah Rukh Khan’s handling of them. His conviction holds this film together… to an extent. My favourite portion of the first half is the joyous “Lutt putt gaya” song sequence, and Shah Rakh is even better in the two small romantic moments with Taapsee Pannu, one atop a moving train and the other one at the end. It’s good to see him do comedy again, and despite the clumsy staging, he sells the small action bit with just one look. Taapsee isn’t bad, but she has to act her way out of a bad wig and I wished her character had been developed more – which is what I felt about the film as a whole.
I walked out with this question: Why does this happen whenever Shah Rukh Khan collaborates with a director with a huge reputation and a unique signature? First it was Imtiaz Ali and Jab Harry Met Sejal, now it’s Rajkumar Hirani and Dunki… On paper, these films have roles that sound perfect for Shah Rukh, and yet, the finished products are far from satisfying. The severely underrated Fan and the relatively lightweight and generic Pathaan-s and Jawan-s seem, in hindsight, more interesting. They do a great job of selling the star, and the star does a great job of selling the movies. I did not care much for Jawan, and it’s not exactly the right film to bring up in comparison with something like Dunki, but you felt Shah Rukh in every frame. Had we really felt Shah Rukh and Taapsee and the others in every frame of Dunki, this might have become a truly emotional journey. As of now, we are left with picture-postcard highlights of what could have been.
