I recently saw "Sanju" and was amazed at the way Rajkumar Hirani has portrayed the troubled life of Sanjay Dutt. It always happens in star families when a child is overshadowed by the glamour and success of his parents. Sanjay Dutt had an added disadvantage. Along with the burden of living upto Sunil Dutts and Nargis Dutts fame, he had to deal with the goodness and the discipline of these professional actors. Being sent to boarding school at the slight instance of indiscipline, made him a nervous, jittery and under-confident person.
Sanju depicts the vulnerabilities of Sanjay Dutt and spares no detail about his addiction or his womanizing prowess. Yet it fails to portray the truth behind his alleged connections with the underworld. Every instance directs us to believing that Sanjay Dutt was scandalised, scared and worried about the safety of his family, but doesnt show that he had long standing relations with people in the underworld, who were connected with the bomb blasts.
Anushka Sharma (in character) is Raju Hirani, himself, proving to us that Sanjay is a soul that very few people have understood, but Sanjay Dutt is a party to the crime, even if he hasnt himself orchestrated it.
A lot of biopics on troubled controversial figures fail to capture the right essence of the character and end up being stories which try to resurrect the faith in the person or just absolve him of the crimes he/she may have commited.
Sanjay Dutt is a fighter. There is no doubt that he has fought through life and still stayed alive, but a better representation of true grit and stature is Sunil Dutt. The pain of having to go through what he has is not comparable to what his son has. If anything, the respect for the Late Shri Sunil Dutt grows immensely.
Sanjay Dutts crime may not be a crime of commission, but it surely is a crime of omission!!
