Tag Archives: Rajkumar Hirani

Movie Review: Dunki (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki addresses the inhumanity of national borders and immigration policies that disproportionately punish the poor. In typical Hirani fashion, he uses humor to make the problem relatable, but the grim, visceral middle section of the story feels out of place.

Dunki begins with the same framing device Hirani used in 3 Idiots: three long-time pals set out to meet another friend they haven’t seen for many years. This time, the action begins in 2020 in London, as a grey-haired woman named Manu (Taapsee Pannu in old lady makeup) breaks out from the hospital. She holds her IV bag aloft as she navigates public transit in her hospital gown, a sequence that makes for great visual humor. Pannu is the film’s standout comic performer.

Manu meets her buddies Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover), who are as eager as she is to return to their Punjabi hometown. But visas are tricky to come by, so they decide to contact the friend who helped them get out of India 25 years ago — Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan).

The action flashes back to 1995, when Buggu, Balli, and Manu hoped to solve their families’ financial problems by working in England. A thriving visa-fraud industry in town promises to help those without skills or money emigrate through dishonest means. Hardy arrives in town to repay a debt to Manu’s recently deceased brother and stays to help her.

The four enroll in an English language class of dubious repute led by Geetu (Boman Irani, who also played an educator in 3 Idiots). Vicky Kaushal has a lengthy cameo as a fellow student named Sukhi. There’s an extended comedy bit as the students think they’ve found a sneaky way to pass their official English exams without really learning much English. Some of it is quite funny, but like many of the bits in Dunki, it’s longer than it needs to be.

When conventional and unconventional methods fail to get them visas, Geetu proposes a third option: the dunki (“donkey”) method. This involves paying brokers to smuggle them over land into Turkey, then via shipping container across the sea to England. It’s illegal, expensive, and dangerous, but it’s their only option. Hardy joins them, hoping the skills he learned as a soldier will help them survive the journey.

This is where the film’s comic tone shifts to something darker. There are some gruesome deaths and an attempted sexual assault that make what had been a family-friendly movie into one requiring parental discretion. It seems like an attempt to do justice to the very real horrors faced by those migrating illegally, but the change is abrupt.

While Hirani deserves credit for shining a light on this global justice issue, his fictional narrative leaves something to be desired. The characters are indistinct and forgettable, and decades of their experience are absent from the story. The audience is only supposed to care about what the characters go through, not who they are, so Hirani doesn’t develop them as individuals.

This is Shah Rukh Khan’s first film with Hirani, who gets a classic performance out of the star. The film’s lone dance number “Lutt Putt Gaya” is enjoyable, although it would’ve been fun if Pannu played more of a part in it. Khan’s other 2023 releases were action thrillers, so this was a nice change of pace. It’s just too bad Dunki‘s screenplay wasn’t up to snuff.

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Bollywood Box Office: December 19-21

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Update: Box Office Mojo lists PK‘s North American earnings as $3,565,258 from 272 theaters ($13,108 average). The movie finished in ninth place overall in the weekend rankings, just behind Top Five and ahead of Penguins of Madagascar.

Aamir Khan’s PK just posted the biggest opening weekend for a Hindi film in North America in 2014. During the weekend of December 19-21, 2014, it earned $3,508,980 from 296 theaters ($11,855 average). That total already puts it in third place for the year behind The Lunchbox and Happy New Year. PK will claim the top spot in a matter of days.

What remains to be seen is how close PK can come to matching the remarkable success of last year’s Dhoom 3, which earned $8,090,250 during its seven-week run in the United States and Canada. A more attainable goal is the $6,533,849 earned by 2009’s 3 Idiots, the previous collaboration between Khan and director Rajkumar Hirani.

Action Jackson closed out its three-week run by adding $179 from three theaters ($60 average), bringing its North American total to $256,872.

Sources: Box Office Mojo and Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Movie Review: PK (2014)

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PK3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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PK — filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani’s exploration of religion — is a laugh riot. Hirani points out the absurdities of religious customs without causing offense by filtering his observations through an innocent protagonist: an alien called PK (“Tipsy”).

A spaceship drops the alien (played by Aamir Khan) in the middle of a desert in Rajasthan, with no clothes and no ability to communicate. The first human PK comes into contact with steals the glowing pendant that allows PK to contact his ship and request a lift home.

PK’s best chance to recover his pendant comes when he meets a rookie TV journalist named Jaggu (Anushka Sharma) in Delhi. Six months removed from a heartbreaking end to a whirlwind romance in Belgium with a grad student named Sarfraz (Sushant Singh Rajput), Jaggu is stuck reporting dull human interest stories about depressed dogs.

Hesitant as Jaggu is to believe PK’s alleged otherworldly origins, she’s intrigued by his take on human religion. Everyone he asks for help finding his pendant tells him, “Ask God.” But which god? How is he supposed to pray in order to get an answer?

PK’s bumbling attempts to navigate varying faiths are hilarious. He gets the nickname “Tipsy” because everyone assumes he must be drunk in order to be so clueless. Seeing wine served in a Christian church, he brings two bottles to a mosque. Whenever someone pulls back a hand to slap him, PK puts stickers depicting Hindu deities on his cheeks, since no one would dare slap Ganesha or Shiva. PK calls the stickers “self-defense.”

Even though the jokes relate to religions more common in India than in the West, the movie supplies enough information for international audiences to get the jokes without needing to know anything about Jainism or Hinduism. Besides, the point of the jokes is that they could be made about any religion anywhere in the world.

From the perspective of international accessibility, PK is as good as it gets. The English subtitles are phenomenal, incorporating slang like “chillax” and “kaput.”

A terrific cast helps, too. Sharma and Rajput are completely adorable together. She strikes the perfect balance as an ambitious career woman principled enough not to exploit her vulnerable new friend. Boman Irani is great in a small role as Jaggu’s boss.

Another great supporting performance comes from Sanjay Dutt, playing a band leader who befriends PK shortly after his arrival on Earth. Like Jaggu, he’s canny but honestly fond of the befuddled extraterrestrial.

Khan is tremendous as PK. He’s earnest and not at all goofy, making the ridiculous situations PK finds himself in that much funnier. It’s especially fun to watch PK adapt to his environment. He learns which mistakes will provoke a slap, and he’s always a step ahead of the angry mob chasing him. A scene in which PK figures out how money works is side-splitting.

The story slows down in the second half as laughs give way to serious questions of exactly what the faithful get for their devotion. However, the ultimate payoff to PK’s and Jaggu’s story is beautifully done.

The universality of PK‘s subject mater, the accessible way it’s presented, the nicely incorporated song-and-dance numbers, and the fact that this is just a damned funny movie make PK a great starter Bollywood film.

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