Sanju, a biopic on controversial Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, is minting money at the box office. It has earned Rs 186.41 crore in first six days of its release. It is all set to become the highest grossing film of Ranbir Kapoor’s career. Ranbir plays Sanjay Dutt in the film.
The audience might have lapped it up, but the critics are not exactly floored by Sanju. Many pointed out the flaws in the film. They believed that the film is not an objective take on Sanjay’s life. And they have a point because Sanju lacks important details about the actor’s life.
Director Rajkumar Hirani’s film is a blinkered vision of the actor’s life and struggles, mostly with drugs. Sanjay debuted in Bollywood with Rocky (1981). He went on to work over hundred films in next thirty 37 years of his career, but none of these films made it to Sanju. Not even Vaastav.
Munnabhai, directed by Hirani, is the second film mentioned in the biopic. But this is the least of the problems with Sanju.
The most problematic area with the film is its representation of the film industry. There aren’t any actors other than Sanjay’s own family. Not even Tina Munim, who was the heroine of Sanjay’s first film, Rocky, and allegedly his girlfriend at that time.
In an interview with Reuters, Hirani said, “Biopic is a different monster. Our initial attraction to the biopic comes from the anecdotes we hear, because when you are writing a fiction story, you might have a faint idea that this is your story, but the bigger battle is how to write your screenplay. How do you make every scene entertaining and engaging? With a biopic, every time you hear an anecdote and think this can be in the film. But anecdotes do not make a film.”
This thought process reflects in Sanju.
Sanjay’s much talked about friendships with Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan are also not explored in the film. They aren’t even mentioned. There was a time when he was doing films with Salman and Govinda, and they were many. None of them finds a place in the final cut.