Bitan Datta – Google

Rating -6.5/10 Dunki is Rajkumar Hirani’s latest and weakest outing. It is unexpected and unwarranted. What's good. Rather a short list • Boman Irani and Vicky Kaushal took their craft seriously. While Gauri Khan production didn't give either of them much screen time, and some of their dialogues fell flat purely because of bad writing; nevertheless, the thespian and the younger stalwart infused much needed sense into the storyline. • Some of the comedy scenes still reflects Hirani’s golden touch. A few were over the top and some others laughably mindless, but some of them hit their mark. What's bad • The sheer runtime. The movie could have been healthily wrapped up in 30 less minutes. • Repeated leitmotifs from 3 idiots, Dangal, Rang De Basanti, My name is Khan, etc gave the feeling that Hirani might be finally running out of ideas. • The movie is confused, without any message, and yet tries to align itself to a cause as important as immigration. • SRK couldn't help himself and regressed to some college student expressions and mannerisms that were neither age appropriate nor situation appropriate. • The movie is insipid- where the scenes do not work in cohesion, the emotions don't look real, the acting doesn't feel credible and there is no great flourish at the end. The director miserably fails to rally the audience behind the protagonists, probably for the first time in his illustrious career. • Some of the sequences are rather inexplicable. When the trio returns to India, all their family members are still alive and thriving. Again, the story is about reaching a first world country by desperate means, and then making a desperate dash to home country- it's a zero sum game.

This theme of man sacrificing his life to make woman happy has gone on for so long that it would probably take a #MaleLivesMatter movement to remind moviemakers that male lives matter as well. Frankly, such movies are unfortunate and a burden to the society which is already filled with a biased ideation that the male must sacrifice. I am yet to see a movie which shows a female character doing the saving and sacrificing, for a change.