(PG13) 2023 ‧ Comedy/Drama ‧ 2h 41m

A group of friends set out on a perilous journey to emigrate to the United Kingdom via a clandestine route called ‘donkey flight’, risking their lives in the process.
Release date: December 21, 2023 (USA)
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Box office: est. ₹470.6 crore
Budget: 1.2 billion INR
Cinematography: C. K. Muraleedharan; Manush Nandan; Amit Roy
Language: Hindi

WWII created a shortage of labor in England. So, they started migrating workers from India in large numbers to work their fields and factories. Many youths from Punjab took this opportunity to make a life for themselves in England. Soon, this spurred other youth to find ways to migrate to the UK. The Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 put an end to migration. It was now difficult to move to England, but the dream persisted.

An elderly Manu Randhawa (Taapsee Pannu) runs away from a hospital in London and meets immigration lawyer Puru Patel (Deven Bhojani). Manu wants a visa to India, but Puru says that getting her an Indian visa is difficult due to her past actions. Manu knows that only Hardy can get her back to India. She requests his assistance in connecting her with her ex-lover Hardayal “Hardy” Singh Dhillon (Shah Rukh Khan). In Laltu, Punjab, an aged Hardy is ecstatic to receive Manu’s call after 25 years. She asks him to meet her in Dubai so that he can bring her back to India through the Dunki route because she is unable to get an Indian visa. Manu, and her friends Buggu and Balli board a flight to get to Dubai.

25 years ago, in 1995, Manu and her friends Balindar “Buggu” Lakhanpal (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover), live in Laltu and yearn to immigrate to London for a better life. Manu’s house was mortgaged, and she worked as a cook at a Dhaba, Buggu’s mother had to work as a guard at a local factory and Balli’s mother used to sew clothes to make ends meet, so he worked a barber. Poor and uneducated, they are unable to procure a visa despite trying various methods. The agent tells Manu to learn wrestling, so he can get her a sports visa on the Indian Wrestling team for the Olympics.

One day, Hardy, an ex-army officer, arrives in their village. Manu’s brother Mahinder (Suhail Zargar) had saved his life when he was shot by terrorists. Mahinder was a civilian, but carried Hardy on his shoulders to the nearest military hospital and even stayed with him for many weeks till he was out of danger. Hardy had come to return his personal belongings, but realizes that Mahinder has died in an accident, leaving Manu and her family in a poor financial situation. Mahinder was survived by a widow (Jaanvi Sangwan) and her son.

Hardy promises to help Manu reach London in return for her brother’s kindness. Hardy starts to teach wrestling moves to Manu. When Manu returns to the agent, she finds that he was a fake and he ran away after taking money from Balli (Rs 30,000) and Buggu (Rs 150,000). Buggu was asked to pose as a doctor, with fake degrees, but he fails the simple questions from the immigration officer. Balli was asked to marry a UK citizen who was supposedly in India but turns out many other men had paid their agents to marry the same woman, who never existed.

When they are told by Hardy that by passing the IELTS test, it is easier to get a UK student visa, they enroll at an IELTS coaching class taught by Geetu Gulati (Boman Irani), where they meet Sukhi (Vicky Kaushal). Sukhi wants to travel to London to save his ex-girlfriend, Jassi, who was married off to an NRI man who physically abuses her. When Geetu makes fun of Hardy in class, Manu stands up for him and defends him. She says that a good teacher is like Hardy who hand holds the students and makes them practice, instead of laughing at them. Hardy falls in love with Manu. Since Geetu is not an effective teacher, Hardy comes up with a generic speech which can be given against any topic in the speaking test and makes everyone memorize it. But the IELTS test goes differently for everyone, with only Balli get the opportunity to use the generic speech. Balli eventually clears the exams and the rest fail.

Once in London, Balli sends photos of himself in front of a big house and a car, making his friends and family in India believe that he has made it big in the UK. He also tells Sukhi that Jassi has died by suicide after learning about Sukhi failing in IELTS, due to which Sukhi immolates himself.

Traumatized by Sukhi’s death, Hardy promises to take Manu and Buggu to London himself through the Dunki route. Dunki is the Desi version of the donkey route, for people who enter the UK illegally without a visa. After a treacherous journey through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey during which three (Pumpi (Diwanshu Gambhir), Gulaab (Vishnu Kaushal) and Chameli (Komal Sachdeva)) of their cohorts are killed by Iranian security forces, Hardy saves Manu from getting sexually assaulted. On the last leg of the sea voyage, Manu, Hardy and Bugg spent 27 days in a freight container, where the conditions were worse than a sewer.

Finally, they reach London where they come across Balli working as a living statue. Balli takes them with him to the place he lives in, where they realize that the photos he had sent were fake, and that he is actually living hand-to-mouth in the UK, and shares a small ramshackle house with a number of other illegal immigrants sleeping in Bunk beds, and in constant fear of being discovered by the police and immigration authorities. They find jobs as cleaning staff in malls and large grocery stores, or as selling adult films.

They meet lawyer Puru Patel, who advises Manu to enter into a sham marriage as an easy way to get UK citizenship. Manu reluctantly agrees to go and marry a drug addict for 1000 pounds. Puru says that once Manu is a citizen, she can divorce the addict and then help make Buggu and Balli citizens too. During the wedding ceremony in church, Hardy is enraged by the drug addict’s attempt to kiss Manu, and they engage in a fight due to which they are both arrested, along with Balli and Buggu. In court, Puru advises them to seek right of asylum to stay in the country by claiming that their lives are under threat in India. As an ex-army officer, Hardy refuses to betray his country, but the rest agree as a means to get asylum and settle in England. Hardy makes a passionate plea that asylum due to poverty or prosecution makes no difference, but the judge follows the law and ignores that human tragedy behind the curse of poverty. Hardy is soon deported to India, while the rest become British citizens, initially working as living statues.

In the present day, Manu tells Hardy that she wants to go back home as she is dying of a brain tumor. Her visa was denied by India as she, Balli and Buggu had claimed asylum in India. Manu also reveals that she never married and only published a card for Hardy, so that he moved on and got settled back in India. They try to leave for India via cargo container in Jeddah. But the agent tells the Saudi immigration authorities about 4 Indians going to London in a container. This was a ruse. The 4 are arrested. They eventually fool immigration officials into believing that they are Indian citizens traveling illegally to London. They give their names as Gulaab, Pumpi and Chameli who are still listed as Indian citizens and India accepts them back. The Saudi immigration authorities prove in court that the 4 are Indians and put them on a flight back to India. Once they reach Laltu, Manu is shocked to learn that Hardy never married out of love for her. Moments after Hardy proposes to her, Manu dies from her ailment. Heartbroken, Hardy puts the engagement ring into her hands and hugs her, watching the Diwali fireworks in the evening.

The film ends with an epilogue that no visas were issued to travel to other countries about 140 years ago.

(IMDB)

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