Sanju: A Cheesy, Formulaic, Run-of-the-mill Bollywood Flick
Sanju
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Vicky Kaushal, Sonam Kapoor, Manisha Koirala, Boman Irani
Rating: 2.75/5
The one name that took me to the cinema for Sanju was not Ranbir Kapoor or Sanjay Dutt, it was Rajkumar Hirani of the Three Idiots, PK and Munna Bhai fame. However, the director who always had something new to show seems to have run out of ideas. Although this is Hirani’s first biopic, as a movie it’s all too familiar and there is nothing that differentiates Sanju from his past works.
Now, admittedly, I missed at least the first 10 minutes of the movie and maybe that contributed to me not liking it. However, that alone is not the contributing factor. Unlike movies like PK and 3 Idiots which put something new on the table, Sanju is stale. From music to the screenplay, from character portrayal to comic moments — all of it is disappointingly too familiar to the likes of PK and 3 Idiots. Believe me, when I say this, there is too much of Raju Hirani in the movie. Hard to believe but that’s exactly how I felt. His tropes are all too familiar and tired and as such, it feels as though you are watching one of his earlier films.
In the acting department, Ranbir Kapoor does a fabulous job of depicting Sanjay Dutt. However, a portion of his portrayal of Dutt in his youth feels comical to be polite. Boman Irani’s Sanjay Gupta feels like it has been plucked from one of Hirani’s older films just like Anushka Sharma’s Winnie Diaz. Sharma’s Diaz is no different from her journalist character from PK. She is, at times, distracting. In addition, the way Jim Saran’s Zubin Nistry/God talks is too similar to Boman Irani. However, cast members like Paresh Rawal(Sunil Dutt), Vicky Kaushal (Kamli) and Manisha Koirala (Nargis Dutt) do a commendable performance.
The movie does have some positives. It his full of quips and jokes and makes the audience laugh a lot. It also has a great message about how media controls public perception. But that’s about it. The movie could have been so much more had it not been for cheesy commercial comedy tropes and music that has frankly been overused at this point in Hirani’s bonafide career. It seems as though Hirani has run out of ideas as far as the delivery of the story is concerned. His movies have always been great commercial successes, however, they never felt like commercial movies. Sanju, unlike those movies, is an out and out commercial film and that ultimately brings it down.
To sum it all up Sanju is a formulaic Bollywood flick with cheesy moments throughout. Full of obvious flaws and unnecessary explanations, Sanju is a fun movie if you are looking for generic Bollywood comedy. However, if you are expecting a bonafide biopic epic, you will be terribly disappointed. Hirani has targeted too wide an audience and as result, Sanju has turned into a run of the mill Bollywood flick.
Sudarshan Rajbhandari
