This drama-comedy, with a fantastic concept, slips solely because of its writing. While Abhishek Bachchan aces with his performance and the film has its moments, overall, Dasvi fails to make an impact.

Dasvi is the story of a corrupt politician who pursues his pending education (10th grade) while serving his sentence in a prison. While he is in there, he assigns his post of the CM to his wife who in turn gets high on power and doesn’t want her husband to come back.

While this fantastic story calls for a great onscreen translation, the poor writing kills it all. The story is lined with so many hidden themes- the theme of need for education of all, the theme of feminism, etc. However, none of it is taken seriously to give out an impactful message.

The writer doesn’t focus on layering any of his characters. Not even the protagonist. The characterization is so poor that you really don’t understand their motives nor do you believe in the characters. For one minute, the CM’s wife is shown extremely shy, innocent and someone who can’t even speak. The very next minute, without any turn of events, she has become this cunning, loud and extra bold a lady. The same happens with Abhishek’s Character too. There are times when you really feel for the corrupt politician in jail but then there are scenes where he is portrayed viciously and you lose the connect. Yami Gautam, who plays the role of a police superintendent at the Jail, is also given a multi faced character. Most of the time, she is strict and a no-nonsense cop while there are also times when it seems that she is developing a romantic interest towards the politician i.e., Abhishek. What ignites the will in Abhishek to study and how he pulls it off is a little unconvincing and logic deprived.

Not only the characterization, the screenplay is also hay-wire with a lot of haziness. The dialogues are decent and have their funny moments but aren’t memorable. Being a film with a moral message attached to it, there should have been better dialogues revolving around the importance of education and the political arena. The comedy is also very mild and will only give you a few giggles.

What is praise worthy are the performances. Abhishek Bachchan aces it with his portrayal of CM Chowdhary. More than being fierce and cunning, he is amazing with an innocent face and personality during the jail time. He pulls off the Haryanvi accent very well. Nimrat Kaur also deserves praise and does her bit nicely along with nailing the accent. Yami’s performance is decent but we’ve seen the better of her.

The background score by Sachin-Jigar is great as well as there are some really great tracks in the album. My favourite one is ‘Thaan Liya’ which is sung by Tanishka Sanghvi who is Sachin Sanghvi’s daughter. She has also sung the very famous ‘Ek Zindagi’ from Hindi Medium and Angrezi Medium the album for which movies was also composed by Sachin-Jigar.

On the whole, Dasvi had a lot of potential and with such a brilliant star-cast, it could have done wonders. Dasvi is still a watchable delight and has its funny moments. It will surely make you smile. The best part is that you don’t have to buy a ticket for this film which makes it even more easily likeable.

Dasvi has released directly to OTT on 7th April and is produced by Maddock Entertainment and Jio Studios. It is streaming simultaneously on Netflix and Jio Cinemas app.

You can watch the trailer here: