Dunki Hindi Movie
Rajkumar Hirani's "Dunki" is a breezy little film about a group of people from Punjab who go to London with no visa. The film begins in typical Hirani fashion, with Taapsee Pannu's Manu Randhawa running away from a hospital and barging into an immigration agent's office in her patient outfit. Living in London as an asylum seeker, Manu wants a way to travel back to her home town in Punjab. When the immigration agent tells her that there is no way out of London for Manu, she finds a recourse in the form of Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan).
Dunki gets into flashback mode way too early. It turns out that Manu, Buggu (Vikram Kochhar), Balli (Anil Grover), and Hardy go way back. A former Indian Army officer, Hardy comes into Manu's life as he happens to know her brother Suhail Zargar (Mahinder Randhawa). Suhail Zargar saved Hardy's life as the latter got injured on the battlefield, but he soon died while on his way back home. The purpose of Hardy's visit is to give the old radio back to Zargar and give him a big hug, but he learns, to his shock, that Zargar is no more. Hardy wants to repay Zargar and his family, and teaching Manu wrestling is one way to do it.
Manu lives in a place where virtually every youngster wants to go to London. This explains why they deck their houses with statues of aircraft as a sign of their flying ambitions. Dunki takes place in an India where the aspirations of youngsters go far beyond their financial capabilities to fulfill them. In one startling scene, Balli and Buggu leave the stretcher carrying the dead body of their grandmother and walk into an immigration agent's office with the entry front that reads "50% off for a visa today." It shows how desperate these people are, something Hardy is no stranger to. Hardy is the more pragmatic of the three, but it is he who leads them to London through the "dunki" route, a dangerous journey traversing multiple continents and terrains.
Dunki deals with a serious subject matter, but Rajkumar Hirani treats it with his trademark humor and broad stroke-filled storytelling. This affects the film more negatively than it does positively. Let us focus first on the positives of the film. There is a hilarious bit where Hardy teaches his friends how to crack the two-minute speech in the IELTS test. There is an incredible performance from Vicky Kaushal in the role of a youngster pining away from love. Sukhi is only a mere trigger for a plot element, but Vicky is simply superb in the role. There is the lovely and nicely choreographed "Lutt Putt Gaya" song from Arijit Singh. The first half of Dunki is so eminently watchable, with the humor, soundtrack, performances, and setting all contributing.
However, the cracks in the screenplay start to become more apparent when the four friends start the long journey. This is where the Hirani film stops, and the film about illegal immigration really starts. A writing decision that does not work at all in Dunki is the one to include both journeys, the one from Punjab to London and back, in a film that clocks in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. This only bogs the film down, and Hirani's filmmaking hardly elevates the proceedings. An underwater action scene looks so clumsy, as does a scene where Shah Rukh Khan's Hardy tricks the Dubai police. The comedy that works so well at the start of the film becomes the villain in the second half as Hirani explores the issue of illegal immigration more deeply.
The characters in Dunki go through plenty of metamorphosis, but we hardly feel them aging. We see it but do not feel it. The same applies to the scene where we see the death of a character. We just do not feel the weight of the whole thing. I guess it is also a bit harsh to pan Dunki just because it is no paean to those fighting to eradicate illegal immigration in more humane ways.
Despite its many missteps, Dunki makes you think and makes some valid points about how to save human lives with more generous immigration laws. There is a lot to admire in the film, including the sweeping cinematography. A shot where SRK looks at the "Big Ben" clock from inside a moving car is so lovely.
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