Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor, Dia Mirza, Vicky Kaushal, Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
Director and co-writer Rajkumar Hirani takes liberties with true events for the purpose of bolstering the film's emotional appeal, but he does not let Sanju turn into a mere cinematic apologia for a temperamental movie star's many indiscretions. Together with screenwriter Abhijat Joshi, he crafts an intelligent script that highlights the upheavals unleashed in Dutt's life by drugs, alcohol, girls, guns and goons. The film is marked by both empathy and surprising bluntness.
A still from Sanju (Courtesy Instagram)
It is but natural that a showbiz life less ordinary would yield high drama when it is placed at the heart of a Mumbai movie cast in the popular mould. But when the rollercoaster story in question is that of the life of an actor who has seen more than his fair share of personal and professional struggles in the course of a tumultuous career, it is bound to pack in moments of extraordinary power.
A poster of Sanju
In his fifth film in a decade and a half, Rajkumar Hirani brings all his proven storytelling skills to bear upon his fictionalised but completely believable exploration of the real-life adventures of Sanjay Dutt, who became a drug addict even before his first film hit the screen in the early 1980s and, a decade and a bit later, dug a big legal hole for himself and his family owing to his ill-advised links with underworld elements in the period after the 1992-1993 Mumbai riots and subsequent Mumbai serial bomb blasts.
A poster of Sanju (Courtesy Instagram)
The 160-minute film, which is essentially a touching father-son drama that also pays tribute to some of Hindi cinema's greatest lyricists, glides through its busy, pulsating narrative without ever suffering anything akin to an ungainly wobble. Kapoor shines bright. That is actually an understatement. He dazzles us; he catches us unawares; and he sweeps us off our feet. In one word, he is luminous.
The other members of the principal cast are left scrambling to keep pace. Especially out of place is Paresh Rawal, bafflingly cast in the role of Sunil Dutt, an actor, director and politician who stood firm all his life in championing the cause of communal harmony. The veteran character actor's presence introduces a false note. His exhortations to his wayward son would have rung truer had they been delivered by an actor less openly identified with a worldview that is at variance with that Sunil Dutt espoused in his political stint.
A poster of Sanju (Courtesy Instagram)
The pacifist father, committed to multiculturalism, is presented as the unwavering voice of reason and sanity and pitted against the unsavoury battles that the protagonist fights to ward off his inner demons and wriggle out of his serious brushes with the law. The old man cites songs penned by his favourite lyricists - he calls each of them his ustad - during his frequent pep talks to his son.
Sanju is the film that it is because of the infectious energy Ranbir Kapoor injects into the film. An absolute must-watch.
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