One Man Many Lives! Sanju – Not Exactly a Review

Sanjay Dutt, one of the few actors who has spoken out openly about his battle with drug addiction.

As a kid he was never my favourite actor and I used to hate his droopy look. My opinion of him as an actor started to change slightly after watching Munna Bhai MBBS. I always knew what he had been through as it was all over the news and while I respected him for coming out and speaking up about what he has been through, I still never gave him a second thought.

When I first heard a movie was being made about his life, I was like why him? I know he has been through a lot but still. Why? There are actors who have achieved a lot more than him, why not a biopic on say a Rajesh Khanna or Dilip Kumar. Why Sanjay Dutt? Then I saw the trailers…. they were just awesome. Ranbir Kapoor’s imitation of Sanjay Dutt was beyond brilliant. Now I wanted to see the movie badly. More for Ranbir, not for finding out Sanjay Dutt’s story. I mean what was there to know. I knew his whole story already!

After rushing to buy the pop corn and missing the first 10 mins of the movie, there we were watching his story unfold…..

Born to the legendary and well respected actors Nargis Dutt and Sunil Dutt… Doting parents, comfortable lifestyle and a ready platform to launch his career. What more could you want?…… Well he has had to restart his career multiple times. One bad decision after another and soon he was addicted to drugs and involved with the underworld. As a result of this he was called a drug addict, loser, spoilt brat, terrorist and what not.

I always thought that he got into drugs because he couldn’t deal with his mother’s cancer. In Reality he was already taking drugs before his mother was diagnosed with cancer. While her diagnoses did push him further into the addiction, he like in most cases of having a father with very high expectations was dealing with depression as a result of constantly feeling like a failure when he was not able to live up to his father’s expectation.

Sanjay Dutt as a person became more relatable through this movie. For me personally it was a very humbling experience. It’s one thing to say I know that person’s been through a lot and completely another when you get to see the actual struggles they have been through to overcome it. By the end of the movie when Sanjay Dutt came on screen along with Ranbir Kapoor for a last dance number, I was more happy to see the real Sanjay Dutt than Ranbir.

All the actors were brilliant!!! Makeup was out of this world… And I don’t know how they managed it, but they managed to add humour to what could have otherwise been a very dark story about a persons struggles in life. In the end it wasn’t just about a persons struggles, but also about how a father and son’s relationship matures over the course of dealing with the various problems and challenges they face together.

What I also learnt from this movie is the art of editing. They have successfully managed to keep out quite a few controversial issues and landmarks of Sanjay Dutt’s life out of the story, focusing on just telling the main story to make a point rather than sharing the story in its entirety. People are going to get hurt either ways. Either cause you spoke out about them or because you didn’t include them. Kuch to log kahenge… logon ka kam hain kehena! 😊 Here is an article of what they omitted from the movie.

Overall it’s a brilliant movie that for me not just managed to get the balance between being a tear jerker and a comedy right, it managed to tell a story, which by no means would have been easy to tell. While some would say the movie was biased and it showed him as a victim, I feel it did capture his struggles. His problem with drugs, being irresponsible, hurting people, being in-disciplined, taking his work for granted and much more. I don’t know why people are focusing on the last part where media was held responsible for him getting labeled as a terrorist. They did judge him without knowing the facts. They still do it today, where people are held guilty until proven otherwise. Media is the backbone of a democracy but often they do get a bit intrusive and judgemental.

In the end I feel his courage over the years deserved a movie to tell his story…. from his side….. and while he may still not be my favourite actor I have a whole new level of respect for him!!!

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