Sanju review: Hirani uses shock and awe to repackage Sanjay Dutt's life

Sanjay Dutt’s life, in the biopic Sanju, is devoid of movie-star glamour. Hirani masterfully crafts it into a relatable story of a young boy who makes bad choices in times of great emotional turmoil and who has a difficult time shaking off bad company. The story is about the loving relationship of a father and a son and about an unwavering friendship that deserves a few tears and subtle applause. But it’s the tireless effort to shine a forgiving light on a fallen hero that detracts from Hirani’s trademark of delivering a complete entertainer.

Hirani juxtaposes his inimitable humour with Dutt’s life events to make light of the actor’s brash decisions and criminal offences. He uses honest storytelling and Dutt’s frank admissions of guilt wherever necessary to shock the audience and then wins them over by simply playing on their emotions. The background score, more melancholy than even Yash Raj and Dharma productions, is overdone for a biopic.

The narrative travels between past and present, leaving trails of suspense in an otherwise well-known story. The device keeps you engaged for almost three hours and gives the makers enough time to emphasise that newspaper headlines unjustly targeted the actor more than once in his life. And, like all Hirani‘s films, the moral of the story is spelt out: let’s not be judgmental, we all make bad choices. Dutt may have been a victim of media trials, sensationalism and the schadenfreude that dogs celebrities. But there has to be more to his life than his misfortunes — which the film fails to capture.

Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra seems right in admitting that it would have been foolish to cast Ranveer Singh, his first choice, rather than Ranbir Kapoor as Dutt. Kapoor’s innocent young face and his naïve persona as an actor is the best thing to have happened to Dutt after Hirani. Vikram Gaikwad’s makeup goes a long way in helping Kapoor play out Dutt’s life on the big screen. Kapoor does a splendid job, but most of the intense scenes are reminiscent of his roles in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar and Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil rather than Dutt’s characteristic real-life machismo.

Vicky Kaushal as Dutt’s closest friend in the film, the Gujju Paresh Ghelani, lights up the story. He’s a special actor who is not intimidated by Kapoor at his best in the film. Paresh Rawal does not misrepresent Sunil Dutt but, apart from the senior Dutt’s calm demeanour and his saying “puttar” (for son) far too often, the character is not very nuanced for the amount of screen time it receives. Manisha Koirala’s cameo as Nargis Dutt is very earnest and she demonstrates why she should be the go-to actor in the future for fleshed-out, mature roles.

Dutt’s commendable fight against drugs is entertaining. But to conclude that he was being played for a fool by a peddler is overstatement. The track “Kar Har Maidan” sung by Vikram Montrose that plays parallel to Dutt’s rehabilitation is well-timed but slightly over the top. It would have been better placed in biopics on sporting figures such as Milkha Singh.

Sanju is a notch overdramatised. It feels like Hirani is experimenting with too many contrasting themes in a biopic, which ends up in a cocktail heavy on emotions. In Hirani’s hands, Dutt’s life is still worth a watch in theatres. However, the film will be remembered more for Kapoor’s performance than for Dutt’s life.