The last time a Shah Rukh Khan-starrer released on December 21, the Badshah’s loyal fans got exactly what the name of the film suggested: Zero. Five years later, SRK’s Christmas offering Dunki has released on the same date. It was a bold step for anyone who is even the least bit superstitious. Maybe the makers thought the movie was good enough to break the jinx, I told myself.
The Dunki plot has ‘donkey flights’ at its core. Donkey flights is the term used to describe the unauthorised migration of people from one country to another. Travel agents take a lot of money to create fake documents or to use loopholes in immigration policy to enable the illegal entry of people into developed countries like the US, UK and Canada.
Hirani has picked an important socio-political phenomenon — as he always does in his movies — but this time, it’s not a humane, relatable story served with dollops of humour that the director is known for.
Instead, Dunki is a meandering tale of four people who dare to undertake a risky sojourn from their pind (Punjabi word for village) to London, only to realise that ''Apna Desh toh Apna Hain". ‘There’s no place like home’ (or one’s own country, in the movie’s context) would be a loose translation of the phrase.
Formulaic scenes, forgettable dialogues, and a hurried screenplay make the 2 hour 41 minute-long film a turbulent ride.
It’s unusual for a Hirani film to not have even one memorable scene or dialogue but this movie is definitely an anomaly in the Hirani universe that includes iconic flicks like Munnabhai M.B.B.S. (starring Sanjay Dutt) and 3 Idiots (with Aamir Khan in the lead).
King Khan couldn’t salvage a skeletal script with elements — sermons on the evils of British colonial rule, an anti-climatic love story and more — that Bollywood (I use that term consciously) has dealt with a million times with varying degrees of success.
Even the depiction of the hardships in the life of asylum seekers is not powerful enough to have an impact on the audience.
Shah Rukh’s Punjabi accent and Tapsee Pannu's boisterousness don’t render any authenticity to their performances.
Vicky Kaushal, in a special appearance, shines and is, probably, the only saving grace.
Dunki was one of the most anticipated Hindi films of the year. It may be a box office success but it will still be a wasted opportunity both as an entertainer, or as a movie that wanted to delve deeper into the issue of illegal migration and its human and economic costs.
Coming from a master of his craft like Hirani, after a break of five years, the weight of the audience’s expectations was already on the movie. Was it lost in translation? Or, in keeping with the theme of the film, lost in Migration?
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(Edited by : Sriram Iyer)
First Published: Dec 21, 2023 2:01 PM IST
