Bapu (Mahatma Gandhi) and Baba (Sanjay Dutt) are not that different if you think about it. Both of them spent time in jail; if Bapu did Gandhigiri in real life, Baba taught Gandhigiri on screen... you get the drift.
Of course, the comparisons are complete hogwash. "Pehle hi chapter mein Gandhi bana diya hai, toh end tak toh bhagwan bana dega," Sanjay Dutt (Ranbir Kapoor) mocks a biographer who attempts to capture his life by drawing parallels with Mahatma Gandhi.
If you thought Rajkumar Hirani's Sanju is an attempt to eulogise Sanjay Dutt, you are wrong. The film does not hide the fact that the actor had connections with the underworld - 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Abu Salem is shown supplying him with AK-56 rifles, and it is hinted that he made trips to Dubai to hobnob with other dreaded gangsters.
However, these are glossed over very quickly and not explored in depth. The audience never finds out how he became acquainted with Abu Salem or what these Dubai trips entailed. A passing mention is all you get.
The original wild child of Bollywood, Sanjay Dutt's life has always been in the spotlight, from his drug addiction to his innumerable affairs. Sanju tells his story through the prism of the two most important people in his life - his father Sunil Dutt (Paresh Rawal) and best friend Kamlesh aka Kamli (Vicky Kaushal).
As a 21-year-old Sanjay struggles to cope with the death of his mother Nargis Dutt (Manisha Koirala in an endearing performance), the pressure of living up to his father's legacy and an increasing dependency on drugs, he forms an unlikely friendship with Kamli, the yin to his yang. Their breezy camaraderie is one of the highlights of Sanju.
Director Rajkumar Hirani, who has also co-written and edited Sanju, has taken more than a few dramatic liberties, but it feels refreshingly candid. If you have followed his decade-and-a-half-long trajectory as a filmmaker, you cannot have missed the humour and heart in his works. Sanju is no different; at no point does the film get too intense, even when it explores Sanjay Dutt's time behind bars.
Ranbir Kapoor breathes life into the role in a way that perhaps no one else could. With a film like Sanju, Ranbir could have easily strayed into the territory of caricature, but even as he gets the body language and accent on point, it never crosses that thin line.
Vicky Kaushal holds his own against Ranbir's superlative performance, and shines in the funny as well as emotional scenes. The other cog in the wheel, Paresh Rawal, keeps things in motion. Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor, Jim Sarbh and Dia Mirza are given their spotlight, but it is Ranbir who shines the brightest.
It is not child's play to make a biopic, particularly on someone whose life has been splashed all over the tabloids, in excruciating detail. Given the kind of biopics we have seen in commercial mainstream Bollywood so far, Sanju has definitely raised the bar. Watch Sanju for Ranbir Kapoor, Rajkumar Hirani, the laughs, the tears... in a nutshell, everything.
0 comments:
Post a Comment