Dasvi has an intriguing premise going for it: a corrupt politician decides to finish up his high school education while in prison as his previously submissive wife becomes a heady politician in her own right in his absence. Drawn from the real-life case of the husband-and-wife politician duo of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi, Dasvi had the potential to make a humorous film with impactful takes on politics, both national and gender-based, and education, but it takes a safe approach by rendering most of its characters as caricatures and going for wish-fulfillment fantasy instead of staying rooted in reality.
Ganga Ram Chaudhary (Abishek Bachchan) is a brash chief minister of a North Indian state who goes to jail for his involvement in a scam. As his wife Bimla Devi (Nimrat Kaur) takes up his reigns and eventually finds her footing as a politician, Ganga Ram’s privileges in the prison are soon stripped away as a new superintendent, Jyoti Deswal (Yami Gautam Dhar) takes charge and puts him to work. Eventually, he finds a loophole in the system: students studying for exams are exempted from work. So he declares that he will start studying for his ‘dasvi’: the equivalent of SSC exams in Bangladesh (and grade 10/sophomore year in American high school). As he keeps studying, he becomes passionate about Indian history, especially the struggle for independence. The stakes increase dramatically when Ganga Ram declares he won’t participate in another election if he doesn’t pass the exams.
The best thing about Dasvi is Abhishek Bachchan’s performance.
Bachchan has been having a career renaissance in the last two years, and this film demonstrates his range, as this is a crasser, bolder character than a character like Bob Biswas. While the film doesn’t give him a lot of material to chew on, he does well with what he’s given. Nimrat Kaur does well as the initially submissive wife who quickly becomes a shrewd politician, although this transition is only shown in a song montage instead of being fleshed out. Yami Gautam gives a good effort as the stalwart superintendent but isn’t completely convincing.
Although the first half of Dasvi blends humor and satire well, the second half gets too preachy and feels rushed.
The film takes elements from films such as Lage Raho Munna Bhai and uses them effectively, but it doesn’t explore these elements as well as it could have. Writers Suresh Nair and Ritesh Shah don’t quite nail the transition from an unapologetically criminal politician to one who wants to change his ways and do good for his constituents. As mentioned before, the film squanders many moments and elements that would have improved it significantly if they had been fleshed out. For instance, we only see the flip side of Ganga Ram and Bimla Devi’s relationship as she becomes smugger in her newfound power with each visit and Ganga Ram becomes more and more nonplussed about her transformation. This would have been much more effective if we had seen their relationship in a normal context beforehand.
As flawed as the film is, Dasvi is still entertaining. It’s not as bad as Netflix Bollywood movies can be, and hopefully, all three of the main cast can move on to better projects that make good use of their talents. In the avalanche of masala films that are taking over theaters in India right now, Dasvi tries to take a different approach to mass entertainment. Although it doesn’t fully succeed, the effort is commendable.
