movie reviews

Dasvi Movie Review: Abhishek Bachchan Starrer Runs With An Unclear Purpose Making It An Inconsistent Watch

April 7, 2022

409 4 minutes read

Dasvi Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Nimrit Kaur, Yami Gautam, and ensemble.

Director: Tushar Jalota

( Photo Credit – Poster from Dasvi )

What’s Good: Nimrit Kaur as the CM is living her best life and I am up to see her doing more of this.

What’s Bad: The caricature approach that does no good to anyone involved and the efforts to make everything look vanilla so it approves as slice of life film does more harm.

Loo Break: At your convenience. You know this story and can even write the climax by watching the first half.

Watch or Not?: Not like you will walk out hating this one entirely, but if you can invest your time and pop corn in a half baked effort, you are free to go.

Language: Hindi (with subtitles).

Available On: Netflix & Jio Cinema

Runtime: 127 Minutes

User Rating:

Gangaram Chaudhary is the CM of a fictional place called Harit Pradesh, like the one we know named his wife as his successor, Ganga does the same. In the jail a young jailor makes things worse for him and pushes him to pursue education, which he has dissed about all his life. Will Ganga pass 10th boards? Will he get back to his chair? Who transformed Nimrit Kaur’s fashion sense? Is the movie.

( Photo Credit – Movie Still )

Dasvi Movie Review: Script Analysis

Abhishek Bachchan seems to have stuck in a loop. Makers are making it worse by giving him scripts that also have similar shows available on OTT (eg: The Big Bull) and which are better and more explorative. Of course, not that Maharani was a great show, but can’t deny the fact that Huma Qureshi and Sohum Shah did induce some intrigue. Dasvi’s foundation brick is inspired by the story Maharani was based on. We all know Lalu Prasad Yadav and his tactic of naming Rabdi Devi as his successor. Just that.

Writers Suresh Nair and Ritesh Shah write Dasvi part inspired by a real life political story and part-fictional where a CM spends life in prison that doesn’t look like a prison at all. The cause Abhishek starrer kick starts with is nobel. An ignorant man reaching a point where he is trying to crack the 10th boards and prove himself. But the journey to reach that point is so long and stretched that you forget the purpose this story started with. The writers and director are indeed trying hard to flesh out this world in a more three dimensional way. But their efforts are only scattering things that the climax does clean in a very convenient manner.

First of all, Ganga makes it quite clear that he has studied till the 8th grade. How does he directly get to sit for 10th boards without appearing for 9th? Forget logic (not literally. This is a film, you have to live an entire life), what is it with the speed in the first 10 minutes? It looks like “we know it’s a sensitive real-life incident we have taken inspiration for, but we also cannot call in the lap of controversy, so let’s just do it at flash speed”.

That brings me to the vanilla part of it. Your film is set in a landscape that holds one of the darkest crime stories. And the mention of honour killing, class divide, caste divide and corruption are used so casually that they don’t even look like real problems. Even the lack of education system doesn’t look like the real problem here (and it was supposed to by the way).

The humour is repeated and Abhishek saying “mere liver me pain hai” while point at his heart is 2002. You still think people will laugh? There is some redemption when Nimrit Kaur does her magic with the basic dialogues, but that is just not enough. Also everyone just forgets their anger in 5 minutes straight. Makers even forget Yami is SI and not the teacher in this jail at one point.

Dasvi Movie Review: Star Performance

Nimrit Kaur is the star for me in this film. The actor does a role far away from her filmography and makes it memorable and how. A timid lady in the beginning becomes a fireball and you can only be happy whenever she is on the screen. Even when she is snooty and evil.

Yami Gautam is earnest as the SI of the prison. The actor outshine Abhishek Bachchan in some scenes and definitely deserves some good screens. Thank God no one was super zooming on her face, remember the camera work on A Thursday?

Abhishek Bachchan makes an honest effort to play a part with all the talent. But the character is written with so much caricaturist approach that there is no way it will make any impact. Even when he gives a speech about education and its need, it falls flat because not for minute have the makers let us take him seriously. I would like to say this the umpteenth time, where is our Abhishek of yore who did films like Yuva and Guru?

( Photo Credit – Movie Still )

Dasvi Movie Review: Direction, Music

Tushar Jalota was the AD on films like Barfii and Padmaavat, but none of it reflects in Dasvi. His approach is to make it a slice-of-life drama while the setup is dark. Not the right formula.

Sachin Jigar make another peppy album with barely a song with a longer shelve life. The music does nothing to add to the movie watching experience.

Dasvi Movie Review: The Last Word

Dasvi is confused about its purpose and that makes it highly inconsistent in nature. What should have been a moving film turns out unintentionally funny.