Sanjay Dutt’s legacy will be shrouded with question marks which he cannot avoid. Hirani has every right to make the movie his way and give us an entertainer that we deserve after surviving through Race 3 a few days ago. But if you have an eye for facts and you dwell into the chronology of events, I am sure you will find stuff which never got any closure. If you go inside to be simply entertained, you will be, notwithstanding the length of the movie. But the dramatization and sequences are subjected to one’s own interpretations. The movie is really good, do not get me wrong here. Manisha herself had gone through the ordeal of fighting cancer and there was a certain kind of connect on screen to her portrayal of the great mother of Sanju. None more so than Manisha Koirala who plays Nargis Dutt. The rest of the supporting cast is carefully selected and hold the script together. After Raazi, this is another feather in the cap for this seriously talented actor, son of legendary action director Shyam Kaushal. While Vicky Kaushal gives us another measured and hilarious performance as Sanju’s friend and a major influence in his life. Some of the best scenes in the movie are enacted between the reel father and son.
Paresh Rawal is a towering presence and epitomises the Sunil Dutt aura to the hilt. The two relationships under focus here are with Sanju’s father, the revered Sunil Dutt and with his friend Kamlesh Kapasi. Where Sanju succeeds tremendously is showing relationships from every angle. More than blaming the man for his decisions, the movie appears to blame the people around and the circumstances. To appeal to the public emotions, the director has intentionally sanitised the character to appear greatly vulnerable and susceptible to influences. But we see Hirani’s signature in how Ranbir portrays Sanju. Ranbir, with the help of Sanjay Dutt’s long term hairstylist Aalim Hakim takes us through a historical rendezvous from the actor’s Rocky days to the present pragmatic ways. Ranbir is another child of Bollywood with highly successful parents and in this movie he is helping his fellow industry senior to clear his slate and rise further in the public eye. Ranbir Kapoor makes the movie his own and in the process imbibes the typical Dutt mannerisms and attitude to the point. Moreover, his visits to Dawood’s house in Dubai and the subsequent friendships with his associates cum producers have been carefully avoided in this glorified ‘misunderstood brat’ movie. How sweet and convenient! Historical documentation does not agree with the said claim. For example, the reason given to us in the movie for Sanju to own a AK-56 is protection of the family. What it does not give us is a honest account of events and silently veers away from some serious questions by calling them all a media-trial or hearsay. Hirani follows the tried and tested template of light-hearted scenes, sporadic emotional outburst and a focus on bonds to give us a movie which is both entertaining as well as gives us the ‘other side of the story’. This time more so, because the movie was about his long term friend and collaborator, Sanjay Dutt. When Rajkumar Hirani decides to make a film, people stand up and take notice. However, the movie takes a carefully crafted road to redemption by focussing on the media trials and tribulations and pleads for vindication from the public by showing a man who simply wasn’t ready for success, in a family where success was inherited. Sanju is a story of one such man-child who was overwhelmed by the high pedestal on which both his parents were placed by the public and he almost succeeded in destroying the Dutt legacy. A son who is thrown into a pit which demands gladiator-like struggle often finds himself incongruous with his surroundings.
With it comes the heavy load of carrying the ‘Legacy’. Nepotism and blatant cronyism are seeded in the very veins of Indian politics and Bollywood.
0 kommentar(er)
