Dunki

An Indian film. A small town in Punjab. A few young people want to get to London; their reasons differ but they all believe the same thing: there is a life there. They cannot get visas. They cannot pass the English test, the money is short, and the official road is closed. A soldier named Hardy comes to the town and decides to help them. The only road left is an illegal crossing. The film takes its title from the method: a long journey from country to country, border to border, on foot, by truck and by sea. The first half is comedy. Language-class scenes, cheating at the exam, and town life. The second half is the journey and the tone changes: desert, prison, border guards, the risk of drowning, and those left behind. What the narrative is interested in is not migration but the right of return: the film jumps ahead many years and shows that people who left by illegal routes face the same difficulty coming back to their own country. Shah Rukh Khan plays Hardy. Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal and Boman Irani are in the cast. Rajkumar Hirani directed; he is known for films that join comedy with sentiment, and this runs in the same line as his first. Who it is for: anyone who likes Indian films that take a social subject inside a popular narrative. Who it is not for: anyone expecting consistency of tone; the film makes hard turns from comedy into heavy drama.