Dono Review: Too Antiseptic To Be The Modern Film It Wants To Be

Rajveer Deol and Paloma Dhillon aren’t short of enthusiasm but have some way to go before they can be regarded as finished articles. With nary an ounce of freshness in its narrative ingredients, Dono is a watery broth that seeks to carry the Rajshri Productions legacy forward while trying to deliver a modern love story about young people dealing with heartbreak, the process of healing and the act of finding closure. It falls between two stools never to get back on its two wobbly feet.
Dono launches the careers of as many as three industry kids – the two lead actors, Sunny Deol’s son Rajveer Deol and Poonam Dhillon’s daughter Paloma Dhillon, and the film’s director, Sooraj Barjatya’s son Avnish Barjatya. They aren’t exactly out of their depths in this shallow affair but nor are they on a red-hot streak in a lukewarm film.

The first-time director ensures that Dono isn’t low on glitz and gloss – that, of course, is easy to achieve – and the two young leads, working within the limitations of a scrappy screenplay (Barjatya and Manu Sharma) that is caught between two eras of Hindi cinema, do all that they can to liven up proceedings. But nothing they bring to the table is enough to help the film snap out of its unevenness.