It’s possible that director-writer-editor Rajkumar Hirani doesn’t know the difference between empathy and sympathy [we saw enough evidence of it in Sanju (2018)]. It doesn’t matter how helpless a character might be – for example: a third-world citizen desperately trying to get into the first world in his latest, Dunki – it’s only a matter of time before Hirani employs the big guns: tears, violins and suicide.Rajkumar Hirani brings a sledgehammer to a pen-fight. At this point, he’s so unsure of his audience – it seems like he’s a step away from adding a laugh-track to jokes, or worse, writing explicit instructions for every scene [‘feel sad’, or ‘laugh till your jaws hurt’].It showcases what Hirani, at his core, has become – an engineer in the garb of a filmmaker. He wants the audience to weep, but also adds a joke in the end, so they’re cheerful going into the next scene. He’ll follow-up colourless pictures of desperate immigrants with a crass joke about a character’s mother wearing jeans. He wants to make a film about the implicit racism and classism in the immigration processes from third world to the first – but he doesn’t trust his audience enough, so he insinuates illegal immigration is payback for colonialism.It makes zero sense even in Hirani-land. All ‘foreigners’ in Dunki are caricatures. When they’re not silent, blood-thirsty savages in Iran (who take pleasure in shooting illegal migrants, or trying to rape Taapsee Pannu’s character – shorthand for ‘Muslim’ in the movie it appears), they’re bumbling fools of Great Britain with stained yellow teeth. According to Hirani, all white people in Britain are gullible, hysterical, cruel and stupid compared to the good-hearted, razor-sharp desis.Hirani’s simplistic filmmaking devices have meant he’s escaped labels of being ‘Xenophobic’ or ‘Islamophobic’. However, in his latest film, the multi-hyphenate filmmaker lays his craft bare. There’s a scene where the film’s protagonist – Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan) teaches an entire English-speaking class a set monologue for their IELTS exam, where they only have to fill in the blanks with the name of the topic given to them. Watching Dunki – I imagined screenwriters Hirani, Abhijat Joshi and Kanika Dhillon, sitting down with plot points (say ‘A’ and ‘B’), and filling the blanks with gags, contrivances, expository flashbacks, and an ensemble of actors [including Boman Irani] mouthing lines like “You threw a slipper in my face, but it hit me in my soul”.Dunki is a shockingly inept film, probably Hirani’s worst. Even in Sanju – despite its outright dishonesty – there was at least Ranbir Kapoor’s excellent performance that skirted the line of an impression, but still somehow managed to be affecting more than once. For a third time this year, Shah Rukh Khan plays a member of the armed forces, who professes his love for his desh. It feels like a mandatory reminder for the general public, lest Khan have to do it through a series of tweets in the near future.Khan’s performance as someone who goes to Laltu (a fictitious village in Punjab) for a night, and ends up staying for over 25 years, feels flimsy at best. He appears to be working hard on his Punjabi twang – clenching his jaw, and trying to replace a hoarse baritone for his usually relaxed voice. It doesn’t sound good, and we never learn anything about him – apart from the fact that he took a bullet for the country, his girlfriend eloped with someone on the day of his marriage, he’s a limitlessly generous, loyal, and in-love man. And, maybe he has a soft spot for aviator sunglasses. Khan’s earlier two releases of the year, both Pathaan and Jawan were in service of Shah Rukh Khan: The Star. Hirani tries to bottle his charisma into a character – like in films such as Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017), Zero (2018) – which he’s unfortunately not fit for.In Laltu, Hardy meets a bunch of locals, who dream about migrating to London one day. Manu Randhawa (Pannu) wants to buy back her house from a loan shark. Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) – I’m not making this up – wants to go to London, because he wants his mother to stop working at a local factory that requires her to wear trousers as her uniform. Her preference for trousers is mocked till the very last scene. Balli (Anil Grover) wants to earn enough money so his mother can take a break from her sewing machine. Vicky Kaushal stars in a spirited special appearance as Sukhi, a nervous youngster, haunted by his ex-girlfriend’s pleas to rescue her from a physically abusive husband in London. Kaushal is the only one in the group, whose reasons have an urgency to them. After failing to clear their IELTS exams, Hardy convinces the others to migrate illegally. All it takes is one death. Some sundry characters join the main group – so they can predictably die, to showcase how dangerous the journey really is.The premise is an intriguing one, but the main problem with Dunki is Hirani’s determination to give a story about desperation – a jovial, heroic and patriotic spin. The screenplay meanders aimlessly, inventing obstacles when necessary, contriving villains to make Hardy look heroic. The four characters have to be the most indiscreet illegal immigrants, who create a ruckus wherever they go. No one clearly spoke to them about being under the radar. A scene towards the end of the London stretch reminded me of The Terminal (2004). Where the Tom Hanks-starrer made its point in an understated manner, Hirani predictably milks it for every last tear in our bodies.For those who thought that Sanju was Hirani’s most dishonest film, he outdoes his manipulation by a factor of ten in Dunki. He will stop at nothing to engineer tears, pity, giggles. Toilet humour? Check. Casual sexism? Of course. Painting a Saudi cop as a buffoon? Who really cares! All this manipulation, and Hirani can’t concoct a decent film with a single redeeming factor. <cue funny accordion music to underline gag>