“Bad choices make great stories”. The movie starts with this maxim but instead of giving us a vivisection of a complicated man, it presents us with a fawning interpretation of a classic sex, drugs, guns and rock ’n roll lifestyle and reserves its sharpest criticisms for anyone other than the man himself.
The film begins in medias res with Sanjay Dutt about to re-enter jail to serve the jail term that he’s been sentenced with. He is desperate to have his story written by Winnie (not the Pooh) a world renowned biographer. Why? Because no one wants to write the biography of “a terrorist”, the moniker that has hung on his neck ever since he was apprehended in the aftermath of the 1993 Mumbai blasts, for possessing an AK-56 rifle. While Winnie has the same reservations as other writers, she is offered tidbits of life story by Sanjay so that she sees his side of things rather than be informed by what she reads in the newspapers. The wafer-thin logic on which Dutt places his argument is “journalists don’t know me, don’t live with me, how would they know if I am a terrorist or not?”. Anyway Winnie bites and what ensues is a highly sanitised and selected rendering of the life of one of the most polarising personalities of the Hindi film industry. The story starts with him working on his debut film, dealing with his mother’s illness and her death, fumbling through an early relationship (no mention of Richa Sharma, Rhea Pillai, la Dixit) and takes a sharp turn towards his days in rehab, finding a true best friend Kamli and finally making his mark in and as Munnabhai (no mention of Naam, Saajan, Sadak and other iconic performances). The most endearing part of the story which serves as its spine is his relationship with his father, Sunil Dutt, a towering personality who became the bulwark of his troubled son’s life. The father-son dynamic is expertly handled in the story and provides the movie’s most heart-warming moments. Perhaps the most striking criticism of Dutt is from his best friend Kamli who advises Dutt senior that his son is just an ordinary man, not an extraordinary one like his father. But such moments are few and far between.
Biopics are often riled for what they leave out and the reverence with which they treat their subjects. In this case, even what is retained is lathered with Hirani honey to the extent that Sanju left to himself can do no wrong but every wrong of his either has an instigator or a logical reason (he took drugs because his friend tricked him into it, he kept in touch with the mafia because he was scared and wanted to be friendly with everyone, slept with Kamli’s girlfriend because he wanted to check if she would be faithful to him and finally he kept a gun because he was scared that his house would face a mob attack and he receives the gun from Abu Salem no less). Even when a visibly drugged Dutt places a toilet seat around the neck of a girl he dumped at the altar, all she musters to Kamli is "don't tell him any of this when he gets sober. He won't be able to take it". This is the film’s biggest failing and is reminiscent of hagiographies like “Guru” that didn’t dare project their subjects in any other light but white.
They say an actor can never rise above the narrative. Ranbir Kapoor’s portrayal of Sanjay Dutt will always be jaundiced by the inadequacy of the film in presenting to the viewer the thought process behind every bad choice that the character says he has made in his life. Having said that, he delivers a nuanced and heart-rending performance that deserved a more gritty and meaningful platform. His brilliance is matched by Paresh Rawal as Sunil Dutt who embodies the kindness of the man and projects the strength of personality that won him respect in all walks of life. Vicky Kaushal as Kamli, Dutt’s best friend is outstanding and so far his choices as a young actor mirror those of Ranbir in his first few films. The rest of the cast including the likes of Manisha Koirala, Anushka Sharma, Diya Mirza and Sonam Kapoor are largely side shows to this trio.
Raju Hirani is a master storyteller. But all story tellers have a responsibility to their audiences. You cannot hoodwink people and say that the sources from where they got their information are all false. It is true that the media today has never been more compromised. The findings of the Cobra Post sting have exposed it further. His scathing attack on the media and his questioning of the veracity of anything we read in the papers today reeks of his own artistic freedom being compromised. The dreaded "?" that he highlights as a key hook in any conjectural article can very well be placed at the end of his own film's title. Whither the man who has provided cheerful yet incisive takes on society, religion and education. He can’t make a bad movie but he would do well not to venture into biopic waters again.
The irony is that “Sanju” is an entertaining film as long as you forget that it is a biopic of Sanjay Dutt.
