Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s rise in world cricket is probably the
steepest and most incredible in recent times.
Imagine, when Saurav Ganguly’s team lost to Australia in the
2003 World Cup Finals, Dhoni was still languishing in the dingy railway quarters
of Kharagpur while his contemporaries Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan
Singh had already wore the Indian colours many times over.
Dhoni’s elevation to legendary status was
mercurial and unexpected.
“MS Dhoni – The untold story” aptly captures this fact and
the real life story behind the man. The humble beginnings in Ranchi, the sleepy small town nature of
people, the Bihari diction of Hindi, the middle class family values and
conflicts that exceedingly talented kids need to face throughout adolescence
and how people who are destined for greatness, ultimately get over these
conflicts and challenges and redeem themselves.
By getting inside the skin of Dhoni, Sushant Singh Rajput delivered
the finest performance of his career until now. The walk, mannerisms, the unlocking
of shoulders, carrying the bat under the left armpit, the helicopter shots,
have been exceedingly well executed. The effort that has gone into the same was
clearly visible on screen.
Rajesh Sharma as Dhoni’s first coach who spotted his talent,
comes up with a brilliant performance. Remember your physical fitness teacher
from school or the selfless, but unpolished, football coach in the colony and
you would see this character. Anupam Kher as Pan Singh Dhoni, as usual did
complete justice to the role of a simple father who just wanted his son to
study well and get a good job. Bhoomika Chawla as a caring sister, his friends
and others who supported him in the journey are all competent. They also help
throw some humour in between scenes. The quality of the cricket shown is
excellent in the first half.
Meeting Yuvraj Singh(played by Yuvi lookalike Herry Tangri)
in an under 19 tournament and understanding the gaps in his preparation; learning
the hard way, how one must not be overawed by anyone in life, is one of the
high points of the film. Another well executed sequence is Dhoni sitting in the
Kharagpur railway station thinking about what he is doing with his life with a
train approaching. He then just boards the train, symbolically showing him
leaving his job to take a risk that ultimately saw him become one of the
greatest cricket captains of India.
The movie loses momentum in the second half, which is
average at best.
A sports biopic should have some personal
and romantic sides, but unimportant songs and dialogues dilute the essence of
an essentially sports movie. Dhoni’s love affairs take up a big chunk and
the movie prolongs 20-25 minutes extra. His wicket keeping and legendary
captaincy and man management skills on field are not captured at all.
Other players are mentioned here and there, some scenes added from live shots, others morphed with Rajput’s face, but generally on tours Dhoni is shown within the confines of his hotel room talking to his family, girlfriend or the selectors. Nothing about relationships with other players, dressing room tactics and politics among other things.
Other players are mentioned here and there, some scenes added from live shots, others morphed with Rajput’s face, but generally on tours Dhoni is shown within the confines of his hotel room talking to his family, girlfriend or the selectors. Nothing about relationships with other players, dressing room tactics and politics among other things.
Neeraj Pandey plays
safe and finally ends up showing that everyone is nice and all is hunky dory in
Indian cricket. Instead of showing balanced inspirational stories of achievers, Indian biopics are guilty of elevating protagonists to the status
of Gods that can do no wrong . Dhoni here has no grey areas, always does right, played no politics, had no conflict
of interest in the IPL and so on.
The film starts and ends with the 2011 World Cup finals. Some sequences looked like a highlights package. When scenes from the actual game are
merged with close up shots of Rajput for the film, the difference in the
background, even the jersey colour is clearly visible. For the maker of “A Wednesday”,
“Special 26” and “Baby” such things are not acceptable.
However for a cricket crazy nation, the movie makes sense commercially. Though some of the sequences in the second half were average, they gave goosebumps and reminded of the
happiness the entire nation was flooded with on the 2nd of April
2011, after Dhoni hit that winning six and kept staring at it till it sailed over the long leg boundary. The shot that Gavaskar said he would like to watch on his deathbed.
3 stars for this one. Watch it for the excellent
performances from Rajput and other supporting actors, if you love cricket, are a Dhoni fan, love his helicopter shots and so on…
