Dasvi Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Why is Abhishek Bachchan doing this to us?
Abhishek, why are you doing this to yourself?
Hey, y’all! Welcome back. This is a movie review and today we’re talking about “Dasvi”, streaming on Netflix.
Written by a team of 5 people, which includes Dr. Kumar Vishwas as a script and dialogue consultant, “Dasvi” tells the story of Ganga Ram Chaudhary, CM of a fictitious north Indian state, Harit Pradesh. He’s incarcerated kyunki some ghotala involving teachers and some such, he leaves his wife in charge as interim CM. While in prison, his life outside changes as he goes on an internal journey as well.
Without mincing any words, “Dasvi” is one of the most profoundly dumb movies I've seen in a minute. It tries to say too much and comes up comically short each time. Failing to commit to a tone, and tone of any sort, comedy or drama or impactful political satire or whatever, “Dasvi” is an unsalvageable hotch-potch, spoiled I dare say by too many cooks.
See above, 4 writers, one script consultant.
Debut director Tushar Jalota comes with a pretty impressive resume. Having AD’d on multiple hugely popular films like “Barfi”, “Ram Leela”, “Padmaavat” and even Judgemental Hai Kya which I quite liked, the opportunity to direct a feature with huge actors comes as no surprise.
What's surprising though is the film’s complete lack of clarity about what it wants to be. Abhishek Bachchan starts out as “Tau”, a CM joh equal parts cocky hai, aur equal parts silly. Jitna who scary hai, with his connections to a khap, utna hi dil uska bada hai it seems. This is a part Salman Khan would pick if he wanted to “act”. Saarey shades dikhaayenge bhai ke, ek bina sir-pair ka dance bhi karwaayenge, and lots of desh bhakti okay?
This role is beneath Abhishek Bachchan, a wonderful, talented actor, who’s only had good luck and good parts with Anurag Basu and Kashyap, in the recent past. Here he is made to flip-flop between all the different things this character is supposed to be, including, but not limited to, Sue Mckinley from “Rang De Basanti” type with an overactive imagination that transports him straight within scenes from the Indian independence struggle, he just shows up next to Lala Lajpat Rai, Gandhi, Azad, its mega bizarre.
Yami Gautam Dhar as jail superintendent hates his patriarchal guts, but quickly mellows down as SOON as he makes an effort to change his own life for his own personal gain, not like he’s doing anything for her or the larger good. On paper police waali ka role likha hai 4–5 aadmiyon ne milkar but its so obvious 4–5 aadmiyon ne likha hai.
Coming to the other leading actor, and the ONLY one worth talking about, Nimrat Kaur. She plays the interim CM, Mrs. Bimla Devi, who develops an unhealthy taste for power. The actor has undergone a noticeable physical transformation for her role and is clearly having a blast with it.
Though her transformation from a meek housewife to a manipulative politician bitch is sudden and hard to believe, but just to see the actor be in control of a ridiculous part is delightful. Cosplaying Hema Malini on a campaign trail, helicopter se utar ek kheton mein jaa ke photo-ops organize karwaa ke, she is now scheming to destroy her husband’s political career because for the first time, while he’s in prison, she’s felt some kind of freedom.
But again, Bimla Devi’s character is used just as a plot device and not to create the actual rival, the antagonist she could have been. Drama ka hint dekar, comedy ko touch karke, yeh subplot bhi rapidly phuss ho gaya.
That’s the word, phuss. “Dasvi” is phuss. Until the interval point, I couldn’t see a visible internal or external conflict that would herald the second half of the film. The hero is fighting too many battles all at once, not particularly adversely affected by any of them. An all is lost moment never arrives at all, and its all up, up and up for him, right from the first plot point, jiska inciting incident bhi ho chuka hai, including it ya showing us call back to exactly WHAT he’s imprisoned for, has not been deemed necessary.
Dear viewer, I love movies, and I love talking about movies. I know no one WANTS to deliberately make a bad movie, but I can’t help but wonder, why Abhishek Bachchan is hell-bent on doing so. In his most Amitabh Bachchan physical look so far (with the dancing and then swag), he’s still peddling absolute junk. I don’t understand why better movies and shows and not coming his way, he’s proven he’s a good actor, are there really no takers?
Anyway, “Dasvi” is not as clever or woke as it believes itself to be. Full of subplots and wayyyyyy too much background music, it's as empty as my heart is devoid of the hope of a good, hard-hitting political satire made in Bollywood.
Watch Dasvi on Netlfix if you must. Watch ME on my Youtube channel, and also come to Instagram, wedding content has begun, woot!
