Shah Rukh Khan & Raju Hirani’s Dunki Movie Review

Shah Rukh Khan-starrer and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, Dunki throws light on the Donkey Flight method used by many to immigrate to US, UK, and Canada. Image Courtesy: @Dunki/YouTube

Birmingham, here I come.  Dunki’s concept was good and it was a fantastic way to end the year, but the film lacked depth. Raju Hirani known for his good filmography, Dunki could have been a better crafted movie making the journey much more adventurous. I felt the main hero was not SRK, but Vicky Kaushal who played a supporting role. It is his effortless performance and the character played by him that made the Dunki journey bearable. And as for Taapsee Pannu, it is time for her to reinvent herself.

In many a places, I felt that SRK was trying too hard to play the young Hardy Singh. The salt and pepper look was suiting Shah Rukh Khan and his older version was much more impressive than the younger Shah Rukh. Looks like King Khan tried too hard to keep up to his star status after ‘Pathaan’ and ‘Jawaan’.

In the movie, Hardyal Singh Dhillon aka Hardy who is a soldier played by Shah Rukh Khan is the man who puts all his energy and power to get the three friends from Laltu- Mannu (Taapsee Pannu), Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover) to reach London. The road to London is not easy and they had to cross the difficult terrain of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to reach their final destination, London. The highlight of the film is the English preparation course to clear the VISA interview to land up in their dream land London.

Filmmaker Raju Hirani tried too hard to bring out the concept of the Dunki journey of the illegal immigrants and showed how people from India take their journey to England for better life. It is not that they don’t love their country, but the fact that many a times they are left without any choice. Now coming back to the meaning of Dunki, the film is about those who to enter a country on illegal ground and the idea of this comes to their mind when they fail in the VISA test because they can’t speak in English.

One of the desperate ones who wishes to go to England, but just for one day is the character played by Vicky Kaushal. This youngster wants to go to London for a day to get his girlfriend who has been forcibly married to some NRI and is a victim of domestic violence. But his VISA gets refused because he is unable to speak in English and when the message of his VISA refusal reaches her girlfriend, she commits suicide. The expression and the honesty with which Vicky Kaushal plays his role will melt your heart. And it is refreshing to see our King of hearts come back to a romantic film.

I feel the film starts picking up in the second half. Dunki has a good message and it is a good way to wrap up the year with a film which makes you feel good, but it is definitely not Hirani’s best work especially when he has given us masterpieces like 3 Idiots and PK. And may be our expectations were too high, keeping in mind that it is our 58-year-old Jawan‘s movie. But the best thing is that there is no ugly display of masculinity.

Rating: 3 out of 5

WATCH the trailer of Dunki here