The debutant work of director Tushar Jalota, Dasvi is a comedy caper that starts on a high note promising bursts of laughter but falters soon after into a crummy story that eventually fizzles out. Based on the theme of literacy, Dasvi could have been a film, maybe a good one, but unfortunately, it only remained a story. The political satire (if you can even call it that) was a much-anticipated OTT release because of the dazzling star cast- Abhishek Bachchan, Nimrat Kaur, and Yami Gautam. And honestly, it would have made quite an interesting experience, only if the filmmakers could have paid attention to the screenplay besides other aspects.
Dasvi traces the story of the haughty Chief Minister Chaudhary who has been ruling the fictional state of Harit Nagar ever since he can remember. Supporting the protagonist are Nimrat Kaur (as Bimmo)- Chaudhary’s wife and Yami Gautam (as Jyoti Deswal)- the superintendent of the prison. On the pretext of a scam and state fraud, Chaudhary is banished to jail time without any possibility of bail. Once inside prison, the reigns of the party come in the hands of Bimmo who almost immediately tastes blood and gets addicted to the chair.
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While in prison, Chaudhary’s umpteen attempts to get bail malfunct and he is stuck there for an indefinite period of time. His comfortable ‘home-like’ life in the prison gets disrupted with the arrival of the righteous and principled superintendent who makes life even more difficult for him. When Chaudhary fails at finding a way out to his freedom, he plans to take on the class tenth exams as a respite from the prison work. Obviously, he is only looking to shirk work under the pretext of studying. But after a heated altercation between Jyoti and himself, where Jyoti accused him of being an ‘uncouth illiterate’, he decides to really strive and pass the exams.
Meanwhile, he also notices the burning thirst and hunger for power in his wife Bimmo, who makes little effort to free her husband. The film dwindles between Chaudhary’s struggle (read: pseudo struggle) to study, his change of perspective about education, and his fight with two strong women- Bimmo and Jyoti. This also marks the beginning of 2 hours long yawn-inducing, dud of a story with lazy cinema references from ace films like Rang De Basanti, Taare Zameen Par, and Munnabhai MBBS, which do not help in elevating the story in any way.
What is remarkably disappointing is the zero work that the filmmakers have put to justify the story and draw the character arcs. All the characters feel like caricatures and cartoons out of a kid’s storybook, which fall flat on the ground. Chaudhary and Bimmo are a married couple but there is no chemistry, no warmth, no personal exchange as much as a dialogue. Besides, Bimmo was shown to be a docile, submissive housewife in the first scene who couldn’t even speak up to her husband. The shift in her character from a compliant housewife to a defiant Chief Minister is so sudden that you will struggle to keep up. In addition, Chaudhary has no back story and neither does his sketch of a brother.
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The message of the films rests on one pillar and that is the pillar of education- the importance of education in life, the effect of education in life, and the relevance of free education. The idea comes over and over in the film, so much so that eventually it is reduced to a preachy sermon that you do not want to waste more time on it (I would have probably turned it off mid-way if I didn’t have to review it). Needless to say, it failed to create a hook or as much as an interesting point that the audiences could hold on to. Midway into the story- the jokes don’t make you laugh, the actors fail to cast an impression and you already know what is going to happen in the end.
If that was not enough, the screenwriters even failed to thread together the parts to knit one piece of a story. It has so many loopholes that it probably exhausted the bandwidth to have more. Chaudhary is a gentle husband and yet Bimmo is burning in the desire for revenge. One explanation to this could be the hunger for power- true. But how could she see her loving husband twist and turn in pain in the prison cells, and sadistically sit comfortably at home without making any efforts for his release? Secondly, the scam track for which Chaudhary was prisoned got solved in the same manner as it came through- mysteriously!
The tiny bright side is that the lead actors Abhishek Bachchan and Nimrat Kaur gave amazing performances. Nimrat Kaur has always been an outstanding performer and if you can ignore the vileness of the story here- she fits the character of Bimla Devi as a glove. So did Junior Bachchan; he was convincing and adept as the minister. Secondary characters- Ghanti (Arun Kushwaha), Imandar (Rohit Tiwari) and Rae Bareilly (Danish Husain) deserve special mention as potential memorable characters. It’s saddening to imagine what these actors and characters could do had there been an efficient narrative in place.
