MS Dhoni The Untold Story quick take: Sushant Singh Rajput’s role of a lifetime
A budding talent gets spotted at the DAV School, Shyamali, Ranchi (Now in Jharkhand), and pushed to play cricket instead of football, the kid’s favourite sport. This is a move that would give India its most successful cricket captain in the coming years.
Making a biopic on a person who is still active in their field is risky as their every move would still be fresh in the public’s memory. Director Neeraj Pandey is walking on a tightrope with MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, because the question remains: What could be so ‘untold’ about a story that has already been printed and rehashed on reams of newspapers.
A budding talent gets spotted at the DAV School, Shyamali, Ranchi (Now in Jharkhand), and is pushed to play cricket instead of football, which was the kid’s favourite sport. This arbitrary move would give India its most successful cricket captain in years.
But, this is how we summarise it. We overlook the blood, sweat and tears; the decade-and-a-half of rigorous training, heartbreak, familial pressure and corrupt cricket bureaucracy. This is the time when a local hero Mahi is turning into a shrewd tactician on the ground.
The film has a tone of urgency, like it wants to reach to a conclusion as soon as possible. Here’s a guy who can be restricted, but not stopped. Words such as disappointment and frustration don’t exist in his dictionary. Or, maybe this is his exterior. Underneath he is like any of us.
The typical middle class mindset forces Dhoni (Sushant Singh Rajput) to go for the railway job, but it’s just the beginning.
Sushant Singh Rajput is in the role of a lifetime. With some help from the VFX team, he looks comfortable in Dhoni’s skin. He has aced the ODI captain’s body language.
The makers have mostly focused on Dhoni’s life before he made it to team India, and that gives it a novelty factor.
Keep watching this space for the review.
Follow Rohit Vats at Twitter/@nawabjha
