Rating : 3/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 41 minutes
Director : Raj Kumar Hirani
Cast : Ranbir Kapoor, Diya Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Paresh Rawal, Manisha Koirala, Vicky Kaushal
Kid rating : PG-15
Sanju stars off with Sanjay Dutt (Kapoor) having lost his trial, watching tv at home with wife Manyata (Mirza). He has a month left before he is incarcerated again – apparently the Courts’s have kindly let him complete his films before they escort him to the kaal kothri. And before that month is up he would like to have his story told via a book, and is busy convincing world-famous biographer Winnie Dias (Sharma) to write one. In persuading her, Sanjay tells her his life’s story and that is the film, reminiscing via flashback.
Dutt’s life has been colorful. Born to famous actors, he’s never been out of the limelight. He’s made grievous mistakes, and been judged by the media and the courts on them. One assumes that coming from director Raj Kumar Hirani, who has been Sanjay’s director in blockbusters like Munnabhai MBBS, the film will cast a sympathetic glow on Dutt’s life. And it does. It also divvies up the blame. Some of it goes to his parenting, some to his friends, some to the media. It seems like everyone else is to blame for the messes that Sanju baba got himself into, but Sanju himself – character and self-control be damned.
The film does own up to some of his faults – the womanizing, the casual disregard for relationships, his apathetic nature, but paints him as an open-hearted, insecure, naive human being who wanted to do nothing but live his own life the way he saw fit. It takes a forgiving look at the man, portraying every wrong turn as a misfortune, over which the poor little rich boy had no control; he meant no harm whatever he did – the druggie phase, the consorting with hoodlums, and his connections with the Bombay blast. In the film, the people around him support him and the ones that don’t quickly fall into place, soon convinced of his golden heart.
Ranbir is marvelous; he becomes Sanjay Dutt. A close second to that performance is Vicky Kaushal (he’s having a good year; we just saw him in Raazi) who plays Sanju’s steadfast friend Kamlesh Kapasi. Manisha Koirala is passable as Nargis, but I found Paresh Rawal a poor choice as Sunil Dutt. Every time he spoke, I heard Rawal not Dutt. Sonam Kapoor plays Ruby, a Parsi girlfriend (Tina Munim? Although Munim is Gujarati) and is you know, all right – I haven’t been too impressed with her since Veere di Wedding. Diya Mirza as Sanjay’s third wife Manyata does well. Anushka Sharma as biographer Winnie Diaz sports blue eyes, an awkward looking curly-haired wig, and an accent. I was nonplussed.
Sanju is a Hirani film. It tells a colorful story without worrying too much about finesse or sheen. It bathes its hero in a golden light, offering up redemption, and the love of the masses. This is still a decently watchable film even if you are not a true-blue Sanju fan, if you are prepared for the fact that this is a tame homage to the real-life persona, and leaves out far too many uncomplimentary details.
Kidwise: Scenes with drug ingestion.
