Dunki review: SRK tries hard to save Rajkumar Hirani’s weakest film till date

Dunki movie review

Call it a nightmare or a bad dream, Dunki – the dream of Rajkumar Hirani to work with his favourite Shah Rukh Khan is boring, predictable and fails to connect.

For me it was hard to accept the fact that a Rajkumar Hirani film in all its light heartedness, simplicity and relevance of subject has failed to make me ‘feel’ in those two hours and forty-one minute.

As if I as an audience was that foreigner in the film who is not able to understand the ‘feeling’.

Equally disheartening was to see King Khan Shah Rukh Khan trying so hard to bring the connection and maintain the interest level in a Rajkumar Hirani film in which the stamp of the erstwhile master filmmaker is missing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t take home even a single scene from Dunki, whereas sequences from Rajkumar Hirani’s earlier films – Munnabhai series, 3 Idiots and even a couple of scenes from PK are still fresh in my mind.

The issue of illegal immigration and the craze to leave India for better prospects abroad is solid and for that the knowledge of English language is a must added more weight. However, the sequences which are Rajkumar Hirani’s forte seen in his movies before like classrooms, interviews, humour in simplicity, lacked depth over here.

The writers - Abhijat Joshi, Rajkumar Hirani and Kanika Dhillon fail to go deep to show the difficulties and ill treatment given to illegal immigrants. At the end pictures of difficulties/sufferings of illegal immigrants are shown with disturbing facts and figures but that should have been the scoring point of this movie which unfortunately is not the case.

The sequence with Geetu Gulati (Boman Irani) gave a flash of F.C Mehra’s Zaban Sambhal Ke – the Indian version of Mind Your Language.

Yes, SRK is rooted here, he plays that charmer that has made him the favourite especially abroad but unlike the way Sanjay Dutt’s innocence swayed us in Munnabhai, a 40+ Aamir’s boyish look in 3 Idiots was so adorable and yes in PK too that rolling eyes speaking those dialogues in Bhojpuri accent were winners.

In Dunki SRK as Hardy is sweet, charming and lovable but the efforts are visible along with his age. And when you notice a superstar trying very hard it means there is lack of debth in the script.

Other actors - Taapsee Pannu Vikram Kochhar and Anil Grover are earnest.

But the only actor who gave me that emotional moment was Vicky Kaushal as Sukhi and not SRK even after his daring Dunki attempts, the speech in London court, the drunkard scene, the proposal to Tapsee Pannu because King Khan was trying very hard and it was visible, that was not the case with the protagonist in Rajkumar Hirani’s previous films.

Dunki final words

Dunki is Rajkumar Hirani’s weakest film till date, agreed, every time MunnaBhai or 3 Idiots should not be expected from the master storyteller but there has to be some trademark stamp, some dept that can differentiate it from otters and called as a Rajkumar Hirani film.

Dunki has made me dukhi

Dunki video review

Do watch our Dunki movie video review in Hindi