Dunki, Salaar: The Week's Top Reviews

Dunki: An Immensely Watchable Vicky Kaushal Is Sole Bright Spot In A Boring, Dated Film

This is #CriticalMargin, where Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative over new Hindi films and shows.

Dir: Raju Hirani

Cast: SRK, Taapsee, Vicky Kaushal

Playing in: Theatres

RAJKUMAR HIRANI’S Dunki is Shah Rukh Khan’s third release of the year. Prior to this he starred in Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan and Atlee’s Jawan. This frequency is an anomaly given that the actor was on a self-induced sabbatical till more recently. Besides, it had been a while since he featured on the screen so consistently. But there was no sense of fatigue because his last two portrayals were a departure from his previous iterations. At the start of 2023, the actor, prone to doing love stories, rebirthed as an action star. The allure resided in the mechanics of the transformation: that he was falling to rise again and rising to fall back on screen mimicked the way he dealt with the personal upheavals in his life that played out in public spaces. The ageing superstar reclaimed his superstardom by showing his bruises; life and mythology blended and crafted a fulfilling tale. Dunki disrupts this arc.

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The film can be summarised as an unappetising cocktail of Khan’s familiar moves and Hirani’s known tricks. Thus, the actor is introduced in a scene where he is standing in a field and wearing a sweatshirt that feels deceptively similar to the one he had worn in his introductory scene of Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Almost poetically, Chopra’s outing was released in 1995 and the majority of Hirani’s film unfolds in that year. The man on screen has aged since but he is still running like his life depends on it. When his character, Hardayal Singh Dhillon (Hardy) falls in love, he breaks into a coy dance reminiscent of Haule Haule from Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008). When Hardy is drunk and makes a show on the road, it is difficult not to be reminded of the many times Khan used inebriation as an effective comic tool in his films (think: Om Shanti Om).

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Prabhas Returns To Form With Prashanth Neel's Salaar

Dir: Prashanth Neel

Cast: Prabhas, Prithviraj

Playing in: Theatres

DELIVERING a career-defining work is a credible achievement, yes, but how does one surpass it? Prashanth Neel had two pathbreaking hits with his second and third films (KGF Part 1 and 2), and bears the burden of outdoing himself with Salaar (Part 1: Ceasefire). He revisits his debut — Kannada hit Ugramm — and gives it a glitzy upgrade with bigger names, better aesthetics and vastly improvised storytelling.

While there were some complaints about the limited promotional material for Salaar, one must acknowledge that the director prepared the audiences well for his magnum opus. This is indeed a story of friends-turning-foes, one that’s high on drama, set in a fictitious world where the law does little to dictate the behaviour of its characters. Even for those familiar with Ugramm, there’s a lot to discover and savour.

Much like his previous films, Neel’s love for 1970s Hindi cinema reflects in his usage of a dysfunctional childhood to set up a strong emotional foundation. The personality traits of two friends — Deva and Varada — are established in crisp sequences. The tale commences in the 1980s, only to take a three-decade leap, traversing through various parts of the country.

— SRIVATHSAN NADADHUR

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