Ganga Ram Chaudhary (Abhishek Bachchan) is an uneducated politician and Chief Minister of his state who is imprisoned for a scam. His arrogancy leads to weakening his rank in his party especially after he appoints his wife Bimla Devi acting CM. During his time in prison, he pretends to earn his right to complete his education as an excuse to avoid labor work. But after reading a few history pages, he develops an interest. With time, he realizes that completing education is the key to succeeding in elections by building optimism through individual development.
Dasvi is like Sardar Ka Grandson, a thoughtful and impressive story but weak execution. But the difference is that the former had better comic timing and applied sensitivity in humor quite well in the middle whereas the latter had no decency to push for an emotional tale by applying extremely forced humor.
Secondly, Dasvi also looks to reimagine the Munnabhai duology but calling it copied from the latter will be incorrect because the director tried to separate the elements of the Munnabhai series in Dasvi. There is a glimpse of matching the plotline but both films run in different parallels.
Yes, Dasvi is an exaggerated comedy but the film can be qualified as a political satire. Abhishek Bachchan, who I believe has begun his second inning from Manmarziyaan and has been selective in picking films and roles, has found the momentum in Dasvi where the audience will accept him and give him another chance. He has always been a good actor but his past choices and being compared to his father ridiculed his career. But this is the first time I feel that like many actors in the past few years, Abhishek is building a repo and may come out of being underrated for more than a decade.
Although, Abhishek’s performance in Dasvi wasn’t really as impressive as he has performed like this in the past. But if someone has watched him in a lot of films, will observe that in the past films he didn’t have the confidence to act nor did most of the directors try to dig his hidden artistry. But now, he is a learned actor making rounds.
But more than Abhishek, Nimrat Kaur is the winner here. Her character development was impressive. Her transition from a clueless and illiterate housewife becoming an interim CM to a refined one was splendid. Also, I must mention Yami Gautam‘s supporting role. Looks like she is getting serious about playing character roles.
Dasvi deserved a better script to do justice to the story.
Once upon a time, an unknown creature from other gola comes to a great nation with many cultures and religions on a research mission. Why did he choose India?? Probably because it is a Bollywood movie and good Aliens always come to India as compared to US.
Dropped on earth in Rajasthan full naked. Nope that is not T-800, that is an alien with no name, no language, but is going to trace the life of earthlings. He wears green remote stolen by a thief who runs away to Delhi.
His super-strength is that he can see the whole life history of a person whose hands he touch which helps him adapting the local life easy. His research mission turns to remote mission as he crosses different shades of life among humans from Rajasthan to Delhi.
With the passage of time, he is named PK. PK’s quest reaches no boundary as he confronts with different people of different faiths and beliefs and in all this trauma, the alien meets a news reporter Jaggu and details his account. No not Jackie Shroff, Jaggu is nick name from Jagat Janani. Jaggu finds PK very interesting and plans to bring him on media where he opposes local godman, Tapasvi Maharaj who actually has his remote.
PK is a comedy-drama movie produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Parinda, 1942: A Love Story) and directed by Rajkumar Hirani (Munnabhai series, 3 Idiots). This is their 4th collaboration as producer-director with all movies achieving huge success with sky-touching box-office collections. With brilliant promos and strong marketing, casting the brand itself Aamir Khan, well-publicized lip-enhancing story of Anushka and cameo of Raju’s ‘Munnabhai’; PK already was a smashing hit before its release and had promised to become India’s all-time highest grossing movie ever to date. By 1st of January, 2015, PK had already crossed Dhoom 3 with ₹264 crore in India and ₹492 crore worldwide in just 13 days.
There is a tremendous depth of take-a-look over the nature of funny asylum. Filmmaker Raju and screenplay writer Abhijat Joshi once again put a load of questions in viewer’s mind like the duo did in the past. They used Gandhi’s philosophy and thesis in a country of a forgotten leader in ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai‘, then took an individual’s brain and heart to break the silence over richly disturbed educational and employment system in ‘3 Idiots’.
Now the writers plot a more common root of religious beliefs and ritualities. India is globally an economic and financial booster among many great nations with a population exceeding over a billion. With that fact, languages and religions play a prominent part in nation-building. But with all social and moral justifications, PK the alien discovers the richness of deception among the majority. That deception comes from their godmen who multiplies their so-called religious business by deceiving those who follow God but not holy books.
PK is an object by a thinker applied on one sector of earth and called ‘research mission’. The flow of script paces towards his various ideologies over a confused state of ‘Call’. In a confound world; PK is disturbed, confused and frustrated to whom shall he call for help when you need. That is the greatest depression of 21st century when a human is effed by state’s politics and law enforcement, and civil war among people of different faiths (sometimes of same faith but different sect). Sect?? yes sect – where school of thought among same people differs and that is what happened in movie as few seconds of Shiite’s Ashura were picturized.
Even India is just an example, godmen are everywhere and people are tremendously tweeting those nuts. PK/Tapasvi scenes are very thought-provoking, specially their last segment of on-air talk show is worth listening. Not only religions but mental understanding between people of two nations are superb. The Indo-Pak affair among larka-larki in Belgium is short on-screen but of prominence.
Minuses? Every movie has, so has PK. Background score has no ears to seduce, songs are way flat. In fact script never demanded songs but being a commercial Hindi movie it is a financially must. Two of the songs ‘Love is a waste of Sperm’ and ‘Chaar Kadam’ already develops heard-before feeling.
I might have less knowledge of internet as I fail to understand the continuity of a video call from house of Jaggu’s father to Tapasvi Maharaj’s center. But more massive error was the talk show which schedule to on air 6pm in Delhi but when calling Jaggu’s lover Sarfaraz in Pakistan, it is day over there.
Plusses are many. Screenplay has already been detailed above as the director has superbly executed the script. Director brilliantly manages to shot highly sensitive religious aspects of the movie in satirical way. Thank God bottle of Vines never reached masjid :P Make-up and costume designing was very creative, PK’s weird match of dressings were well-explained and the over-usage of vehicles sketch a sharp contrast of India’s huge concerns over non-stop population or HIV aids (just another small thought over writer’s flow of ink on paper).
I really don’t see Sanjay Dutt’s heavy-duty on cameo of that prominence. Anyone could have played that role. He surely was picked to bring Munnabhai back to some circuit. I am majorly surprised that this time Raju put Boman Irani in such a minor role as compared to other notable roles in previous Raju movies. Anushka gives life to her Jaggu character and Saurabh Shukla‘s Tapasvi role is just another highlight of his superb CV.
Aamir Khan as PK proves yet again why is he called the ‘Perfectionist’. He goes naked, dresses weird, adopts what he breath. Saying in short, he customise and smokes the role in very AK way. He is an absolute showstopper who will entertain you in the whole movie. His facial expressions have no full stop on limits, the Rajasthani dialogue delivery is remarkable.
PK is a must watch movie, not because it is an Amir Khan movie but also it appeals you to understand. The message has social and religious issues but vehement.
Sami Naik | Film Critic 