Shahrukh Khan is back for the third time in 2023, and this time with Rajkumar Hirani being the director. The long awaited actor-director combo has come this Christmas 2023, and presented a story of three friends and an army man who use 'Donkey Route', spelled as 'Dunki' in local language, to cross international borders, settle abroad and earn money, because neither they are educated enough to get a good job in their hometown Punjab, nor are they rich enough to legally apply for a visa. Apart from Shahrukh Khan as Hardy, 'Dunki' stars Tapsee Pannu as (Manu), Vikram Kochhar (Buggu), Anil Grover (Balli), Boman Irani (Gulati), Vicky Kaushal (Sukhi) as a special appearance, and other supporting cast.
What works
The casting has been truly appropriate. As the entire story is based in Punjab, Rajkumar Hirani has made sure that the casting will include actors, who have the punjabi genetics. Tapsee Pannu, Vikram Kochhar, Anil Grover and Vicky Kaushal have the required genetics and they make things very natural on screen. Shahrukh Khan (although not a punjabi) aces the punjabi accent well and performs naturally too.
Direction has been good, typical Raju Hirani style to be precise. All actors are given proper space, no matter the characters they're playing are lead or side. The social messaging is done well and so is the comedy (in parts). The director makes us empathise towards the characters through direction, storytelling and performances. The fact that the audience (who didn't even knew what donkey flight is prior to the release of the film) is feeling for the characters shows the level of conviction Raju Hirani has in his work. The story, although a very ground level reality, has been put up really well on screen. The screenplay has a non linear approach and is quite enjoyable. Back stories of several characters match up well and add reasoning to the story. Shahrukh's army man character has been intelligently used in several scenes in the film. Especially the court room scene where everyone appeals for an asylum, Hardy's army character and his traits really come into play. The Dunki route and the techniques that have been shown are inspired from real life events, pictures of which we see at the end of the film. This shows the research work that has been done for the film to look as genuine as possible. Even, the plight and problems of the immigrants are shown very well in the film.
Performances have been top notch. Everyone has given their very best and one can easily tell so after watching the film. Several scenes are elevated only because of the power pack performances. All have done really well, but Vicky Kaushal and Tapsee Pannu have given stand out performances. Vicky Kaushal shines even in his small screen time and really makes us emotional in the interval block. Tapsee is in her full form and delivers effortless performance. Her comic timing, accent, emotions and especially the climax hits hard, very hard as Dunki has a sad ending. Although the SRK-Tapsee chemistry is fine, it's better when their characters get old. The old SRK and Tapsee really stand out as a jovial old couple. There is a particular desert scene which comes in the second half; Shahrukh has probably two dialogues in the entire scene and the the rest of the sequence is carried out just by class acting. The screenplay sets up the entire scene, and the intensity with which Shahrukh pulls off and concludes the entire sequence is fantastic. The contribution of performances and music in this film has been more than the contributions of other departments combined.
The music of this film is another highlight in Dunki. The song 'Lutt Putt Gaya' is the only one which has been put into the screenplay in it's full version. Rest of the songs are beautifully synchronised with scenes in the second half of the film. The tone of the song matches very well with the scene along which it's played. This shows the brilliance of Rajkumar Hirani as a filmmaker.
The cinematography has been good. From small alleys in Punjab, to The Big Ben in London, the cinematography is quite efficient. The editing, although not very crisp, is quite good and appropriate for a film of this genre. An entire single take transition shot towards the end of the film with metaphorical use of colours, coupled with the song 'Nikle the kabhi hum ghar se' by Sonu Nigam is probably one of the best scenes in the film. It's shot well, and edited even better.
The comedy is good (if not the best) and is carried out better. Vikram Kochhar is flawless in his comic timing and so is Anil Grover. Tapsee and SRK also carry out comedy quite well.
What doesn't work
Even the family audience is quite comfortable in watching slapstick comedy nowadays but Dunki's comedy is very clean on the contrary. Although it generates organic laughter and one shouldn't except Raju Hirani to write sexist comic lines for the character of an army man, the comedy is just too clean for today. The comedy is dark at places which isn't carried out as good as you'd expect, and is overall a bit dry as compared to the comedy of other Raju Hirani films.
There are some scenes which are flat. It's like Raju Hirani wanted to let performances do all the talking. Performances do talk, even more than one would expect, but that doesn't take away the fact that some scenes could've been treated better. The 'Dunki travel' to India in the second half is a great sequence, with some information being given away in the beginning, and then an unexpected plot twist coming in to conclude the scene. Although Raju Hirani isn't known to include thrills and tension build ups in several scenes in his films, but there were some scenes in Dunki which required an extra emotional touch (which always need not be thrill), in terms of comic, high pitched drama or even a surprise, which seems to be missing in Dunki.
The execution of the second half of the film could've been done better. It's not bad at all, but had the screenplay approach in the second half been somewhat different (while keeping the main context similar to what it is), the overall impact of the film could've been more. The film doesn't really show how the characters who settled abroad in 1995 got jobs or spent their days in London. Same goes for SRK as well, as we do not get to know how his character Hardy overcame all hardships without having Manu by his side.
Finally, there are almost zero elements in this film, which cater to a large number of people. This the reason majority of the Indian audience may feel detached from the film, and find it out of context. Thus, Dunki remains as a single time watch affair for maximum of the public, as the story won't resonate much with the general audience, who rightfully value entertainment over everything.
Conclusion
Dunki may not be a perfect film but it's definitely a well made film, which is genuinely good. While other films in Raju Hirani's filmography are 100 on 100; Dunki is a 90 on 100, which is excellent in individual terms but falls a bit short in comparison with others. The current audience tendency is to watch larger than life films in the theatres and Dunki clearly doesn't fit into the category. The fact that Dunki is doing good business despite being different from the current pattern of successfull films, having no mass appeal, having less single screen support, having less repeat viewing elements and a big clash from the Prabhas starrer Salaar, is too commendable to be honest. Kudos to Raju Hirani as well to make a film of this kind when the tide is completely opposite.
Also, Shahrukh taking up a film of this genre after delivering two back to back Rs 1000 + worldwide grossing blockbuster films, shows his dynamism as an actor. This successful experimental venture will definitely lead Shahrukh to experiment with different topics in the near future. We can definitely wish to see the SRK - Rajkumar Hirani combo once again as Hirani does films back to back with actors he feels comfortable working with. Raju Hirani has worked back to back with Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma and Vicky Kaushal, and Shahrukh Khan should be no different !
Recommendation
8.5/10