Starring Shah Rukh Khan, comedy drama ‘Dunki’ will tackle the mass exodus of youth from the state of Punjab
Mumbai
Without any fanfare, Red Chillies Entertainment has released the trailer for Shah Rukh Khan’s upcoming film, Dunki. Directed by Rajkumar Hirani, Dunki appears to be a comedy drama with a social message, much like his past hits such as Sanju, 3 Idiots and the Munna Bhai movies. Dunki will tackle the mass exodus of youth from the state of Punjab, and examine the idea of patriotism in a country whose people are desperate to leave it because they don’t have any options.
The story begins in 1995, when Shah Rukh’s character, Hardayal Singh Dillon, aka Hardy, arrives at a small town called Lalti. There, he meets the people who’d go on to become his best friends. One is a barber, another a clothes salesman, and the third – Vicky Kaushal’s character – lives to show off his English vocabulary. Each of them wants nothing more than to move abroad. But the most important person that he meets is Manno, played by Taapsee Pannu, who fights for him when nobody else would.
But at every turn, Hardy and his buddies are told that they cannot live abroad because they don’t even know the language. After a personal tragedy – it appears that someone close to them dies – the gang decides to take the illegal route abroad. We see them traverse vast deserts, ride on the roofs of trains, get shot at by soldiers, and even swim across rivers and hike across mountains. At one point, Hardy is arrested at an airport, and later, he holds someone at gunpoint. The trailer ends with him declaring that he wants to correct the mistakes that he made in his past, and an older, more patriotic Hardy is revealed to be participating in some kind of athletics.
In an interview with indianexpress.com, casting director Mukesh Chhabra declared that Dunki would be ‘remembered for the next 10 years’. Comparing it to the films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, he said, “When I read the script of Dunki, I was blown away. If you loved 3 Idiots, it is going to be 100 times better than that. I have cried whenever I have read the script. Every time.”
Dunki marks a creative departure for Shah Rukh, who rebounded this year with the back-to-back action blockbusters Pathaan and Jawan. The films made a combined total of Rs.2200 crore worldwide, and the industry has high hopes for Dunki as well. Hirani’s track record is unblemished, after all. But will the film’s story, which recalls two flops – Shah Rukh’s own Zero and the recent Aamir Khan-starrer Laal Singh Chaddha – work against it? Dunki will be released on December 21, two weeks after the blockbuster Animal, and a day before the Prabhas-starrer Salaar.
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