Dilli Gang


The film attempt to espouse a social commentary on senior citizens who are abandoned by their children to pursue a career abroad. It also deals with their loneliness and the un safeness in cities. It also raises it voice about the alarming violence and crime against the aged in the capital city. Both these issues are tackled in the film in a tad manner.

Review: Dilli gang portrays the day-to-day problems that ageing parents face, after their ambitious children abandon them so that they could focus on their high-paying jobs in other countries. This film attempts to send across to all those children, who are too busy to notice that their parents need them. Director Ashish Tyagi sheds light on a highly relevant topic for this modern day dilemma has been plaguing our society. While all parents want their children to be successful, they do not wish to be left alone, especially in old age.

Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal has penned two poems which appear before and after in this film. Earlier at a media event of Dilli Gang Sibal had expressed, “If somebody wants to express his feelings and responsibilities towards society then I think Bollywood is the strongest medium.” Alas! Good intentions don’t necessarily make a good film.

An elderly couple in Delhi Vishambar Prasad (Darshan Jariwala) and his wife Sujata (Neena Kulkarni) faces similar issue when their only son Ashish ( Amir Dlavi) leaves them alone and go to overseas to pursue his business and rarely visit them. They just married off their younger daughter amidst much pomp and gaiety. Soon after the wedding their only son goes back to Germany from where he had come only to attend his sister’s wedding. The old couple is left alone in their big mansion in Delhi. To add to their woes, is the rise in crimes committed against senior citizens in the capital.

Cut to another track, somewhere in this city there are four goons whose livelihood is to murder and loot hapless senior citizens in the city. They do this by pretending to be AC mechanics who offer free checks of ACs even when your AC could be working perfectly fine. Dilliwaalas open their doors to anybody who offers a free service. Then there are domestic servants and drivers who are hand-in-glove with the four criminals. This is not to say that such things do not happen. Newspapers are regularly full of crime stories about how senior citizens are cruelly murdered by thugs for money. The way the proceedings are carried out in this film is way too amateurish and even plain lame. That it employs supporting actors who don’t look convincing doing their part only spoils things further for Dilli Gang. Sadly the crime track is least effective

The family sub-plot is highly emotional and manages to touch your heart, thanks to Nina Kulkarni and Darshan Jariwala’s heartrending performances. You do feel the emotional pain and sense of loss that Ashish experiences because actor Amir Dalvi convincingly does that part of the job. The way the sketchy screenplay and situations unfold in this film is way too simplistic and random. while the whole cop investigating the case and the criminals roaming around freely, in search of new targets or new ‘mummy-papa’ as they keep saying throughout the movie looks way too feeble.
Then there are some half measures about come cop (Yashpal Sharma) having to bear the brunt of the media and his bosses for the rising murder cases of senior citizens in his area. The two issues though interlinked are separate ones. The film gets lost between the two and never raises any larger questions about the safety of senior citizens in big metros where joint families are disintegrating and nuclear families are the order of the day.

Overall, an ineffective execution fails to do justice to the good intent and solid performances.

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