M.S. Dhoni : The Untold Story

M.S. Dhoni : The Untold Story; well that’s the title of this Neeraj Pandey directed film which has an elaborate 190 minutes of runtime. From the point the film was announced there were these debates on how it is going to be as the person in the spotlight is still a player /captain in the national cricket team. Will it be just praises? Will it touch all those controversial phases Dhoni went through? Etc. were questions that came in many people’s mind. The movie M S Dhoni : The Untold Story has handful of moments for you to scream as a cricket fan/ Dhoni fan. But as a movie, it isn’t that appealing.

The movie focuses on the events that happened prior to India’s world cup victory in 2011. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was this middle class boy from Ranchi who was actually interested in Football. His school coach saw his potential to be a cricketer and thus he starts his journey to be a cricketer. The movie ultimately shows us how Dhoni went through various phases in that segment of his life including job related issues, relationship problems and his fight to be the cricketer he wanted to be.

There is a group who says he sidelined a lot of players including the ones who gave him chance and there is a section who believes MSD is a selfless captain. Where you stand on that debate has a key role in you being able to enjoy this movie. Because this more than three hour long movie from Mr. Neeraj Pandey is basically Dhoni’s attempt to justify a lot of blame on his shoulder. And the film pictures him as a very perfect human being. I am not trying to judge a person here by saying that. But when a movie of biopic nature avoids a lot of crucial phases and simply justifies everything done by the leading man, it feels less convincing.

Emaraan Hashmi’s Azhar also had this nature of just avoiding the controversy and that lead to the dull result of that film. Here Neeraj Pandey was lucky that Dhoni is one captain whose hall of fame has many exciting cricket moments of Indian Cricket team. The “untold” segment of the M S Dhoni story is largely focusing on the two love stories of the Indian skipper. Neeraj Pandey’s script tries to pitch them in between the ups and downs of Dhoni’s career. Arun Pandey, the producer of the movie is this Sports Agent (Rhiti Sports) of M S Dhoni and to be honest the movie at many areas looks like a grand scale PR exercise. It restrains for entering many key areas which we as an audience would have expected clarity. You can see all these latest brands getting promoted at a time when those brands were not even started. Such instances give you a feeling that this movie was more of “product” rather than a sincere cinema.

The conversations at times needed a better polishing to reduce its dramatic typical tone. Cuts were neat and the cinematography was fine. Captain America The First Avenger, model head pasting visual effects has been used at many places in this movie. Well the output is really a mix of good and worse. The face in that Parwez Musharaf sequence was bizarre, while the way you see Sushant in the celebration after India win the world cup was blended perfectly. The other areas are also slightly flawed. The songs were nice.

One person I would confidently say everyone will praise after this movie is Sushant Singh Rajput. Making us believe that he is MS Dhoni is a very crucial and challenging part in this movie and Sushant has done a tremendous job in being that simple cricketer and has done an impeccable observation in studying the body language of the Indian skipper. Disha Patani makes a nice debut as Priyanka. Kiara Advani was okay playing the way too innocent Sakshi Shoni. Casting of Herry Tangri as Yuvraj Singh was one spot on decisions (The Jagmohan Dalmiya casting too). Anupam Kher, Rajesh Sharma and a few more prominent names are there in various key roles delivering good performances.

On the whole there isn’t much “untold” about M S Dhoni : The Untold Story. I was expecting a few answers from the movie like the peculiar calm nature of captain cool MSD and only got one answer (the origin of helicopter shot). Seeing those 2011 World Cup moments on the big screen indeed made me happy and you will all applaud for sure. But if you come out of that excitement, the film doesn’t really stay in your mind to be that inspirational story of a cricketer with no God father.

Rating : 2.5/5