The story, mostly told in a flashback, revolves around Manu (Taapsee Pannu), Buggu (Vikram Kochar), and Balli (Anil Grover), each of who, desperately want to move to London, from the village Laltu, in Punjab, set in the India of the 1990s. Each with their own individual reasons for a better life for their families. When the official route of passing IELTs and getting visas fails them, leading to a dire tragedy of their close friend, our hero, Hardy (aka SRK) vows to get his friends to London, by hook or by crook. And so they embark on the brutally infamous illegal migration route, known as Dunki, crossing borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and finally UK, suffering all through at the hands of violence, hunger, death, drowning, disease, and mental torture. After all this, the abject poverty and helplessness of the illegal immigrant life in UK further adds to the grief, that never fully gets better even after 25 years of living and earning in pounds, and lifting their families out of poverty back home. Was it all really worth it? They wonder and start their journey back home, only to meet their next adventure of illegally migrating back, again only made possible by our dare devil travel partner, Hardy. And ending finally a kind of happy ending, for most of the characters anyway.
Now, to be fair, migration is a real and a big issue in the world today. It’s so big that across most of the Western world, the definition of whether you’re a liberal or not is being defined by your stance on immigration into your country. And it’s true that the biggest victims of restrictive immigration policies are the poor, and therefore the consequence of worsening inequality in an already unequal world. And finally, for sure, this message needs to be given to many in India who, not knowing better, aspire to an imagined life abroad that only brings them disappointment and misery. Whereas a choice to stay back in their own motherland might have just worked out better in the long term. Especially, in the context of what we are told in the media everyday, Indiyaah Indiyaah! Clap clap clap.
And so, to take up making a movie on this issue, is, itself quite ambitious and for that we complement you, Raju Hirani and Abhijat Joshi. This is definitely much harder than championing the cause of everyday love and humanity in our lives (Munnabhai) or commenting on our flawed education system (3 Idiots) or showing a mirror to our intolerant superstitions, biases and religious bigotry (PK).
But, this is not what your core competence (as we would say in business language) is, Mr Hirani. Your craft is in building characters and making the audience form an intimate relationship with them. Munnabhai was the leader we never had. Circuit was the loveable side-kick with ultimate jugaad that we could depend on. Rancho was the friend that made you a better and happier person. And this was true of the entire cast. Whether it was Qureshi, Rastogi, Virus, or any of the others. Because of this, we felt what they felt in the film, and experienced the film in the first person. Unfortunately, Dunki doesn’t help us form any relationship with any of the characters. They all feel distant, unconvincing, and almost caricaturish. As a result, we are watching the film in the third person, at best laughing at the jokes or sympathising with some characters and scenes, but mostly watching the hours pass by.
The second reason is that Raju Hirani's usual brilliance comes from the fact that he gets people and society, and more importantly, the deep interconnectedness of these two units. And the flawed humanity at the centre of it, that creates room for both laughter and tragedy at the same time. That’s why it connects with us. Because it’s the story of our everyday lives. If “Roz Marra ki zindagi” became a social media influencer, that would be a Hirani movie. Dunki, unfortunately, is not about the “micro” units of people and society, but about the “macro” units of nation and politics. And therefore Hirani trying to tell an emotional people-story here makes it feel shallow, inauthentic and laborious. This genre is best left to either the Anil Sharma’s (aka Gadar) or the Meghna Gulzar’s (aka Raaz/Sam Bahadur) of the world, depending on your preference.
The third reason the film fails is because of the quintessential missing narrative style of a good Hirani film. His style is that of satire or “Vyangya” as we describe it more aptly in Hindi. Take Munnabhai 1 and 2, or 3 idiots, or PK. Each of them uses satire as a powerful tool to make us feel, reflect and laugh all at the same time. Much like what a stand up comedian does. Take the satire out, and all you have is a bunch of trite or heard-before jokes, just made louder with a generous dose of Punjabi-ness. Like “I want to go to Lava-tory”! Ugh! Dunki, unfortunately, is that.
And finally, if disappointing writing and story telling wasn’t bad enough, the actors don’t manage to compensate for any part of this loss either. SRK, after a what seemed like a comeback with Pathaan and Jawaan (read my reviews of the two earlier in the year), misses the ham-trick (I mean hat-trick!) reminding us of everything we had tried to forget this last decade or so. Tapsee Pannu, is herself like in every movie, only worse, with a fake old skin and a grey wig. The other two support characters, Buggu and Balli and even Boman Irani, are instantly forgettable. And Vicky Kaushal, in guest appearance gives a brief glimmer of hope, that quickly fades away.
All in all, because we love your movies so much Raju Hirani, we’re happy for you that you tried a new topic, a new narrative and a new story telling to explore your creative potential and possibilities. But, please could you go back to what you do best. We could do with a good Hirani fix in our grim world today. That’s what we were hoping to get with this one, as we ended this year and looked forward to a new year. And that’s what we didn’t get.
And that’s why we are sooooooo disappointed.
Here’s hoping for the next one!
Amazing and very heartfelt review.
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