Mighty hit

Sushant Singh Rajput and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are the real heroes in the cricketer's biopic

When you enter a movie hall to watch a film made on one of India's best cricketers, there are only two questions to be asked. Do you like cricket or do you not? When that cricketer is Mahendra Singh Dhoni, this binary deepens - are you his fan or not? Neeraj Pandey's M S Dhoni: The Untold Story begs that question right at the beginning -will you cheer for Dhoni? - and then, the three hours and five minutes that follow make you want to leave everything and applaud. That applause, I realise on further reflection, is both for the film and its protagonist. But it is perhaps most for Sushant Singh Rajput and his understated brilliance as Dhoni.

The manner in which Rajput has replicated Dhoni's mannerisms is commendable. Right from shrugging his shoulders to adjust his jersey's sleeves to wiping the sweat off his brow, Rajput is a mirror image of Dhoni. Though Dhoni's trademark "helicopter shot" isn't given the space it deserved, its genesis is explained in the film through a simple, friendly incident. The fact that a basic human instinct - impressing a woman - was behind the famous batting manoeuvre adds a nice touch.

The thing with the biopic is that there can be no spoilers. But with M S Dhoni, there is still some scope, considering the private and guarded life that the cricketing star has led. His expressions on and off the field have been equally guarded - there's a reason he's called "captain cool". There are details about Dhoni's childhood, the heart-rending struggle before his glitzy success, which only the truest fan who has gleaned all newspapers and all media articles on him would know of. Pandey as the director needs special kudos for recreating India and Bihar of the 1990s and the 2000s, right down to the frugal middle-income living, the v-necked sweaters and the Bajaj two-wheelers. Dhoni's childhood home in Ranchi, the classic sofas, the little puja room, everything points to extensive research and a remarkable attention to detail.

It is no secret that Dhoni's has been a rags-to-riches story where a young cricket prodigy achieves his true fate. But fleshing out this struggle and recreating it for the screen would have been a challenge, especially when the screenplay has to rely on sepia-tones memories of Dhoni and his family. Pandey deserves a hat-tip for the script and the culturally nuanced dialogues, capturing the average Bihari dialect without stereotyping. The film shines in the first half, when Pan Singh Dhoni (essayed by Anupam Kher) and his wife worry about young Dhoni's ambition, his lack of attention to studies and the fate of his career. Actors who play smaller characters, such as Dhoni's first coach, Banerjee, former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Jagmohan Dalmiya and Dilip Vengsarkar, cricketer and chairman of the Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW), do it to a tee. The real surprise is in the form of Herry Tangri as Yuvraj Singh, who I almost mistook as the real Singh for a moment. And if you pay close attention, you'll even spot Fawad Khan as Virat Kohli.

The film keeps you on the edge of your seat for the first half. The grief, the hollow existence of being stuck in a job that isn't Dhoni's passion tug at one's hearstrings. Sitting with him on that rain-soaked train platform, just before he literally and metaphorically leaps on to a moving train, you feel like you're a part of his life and its conflicts.

What sets the pace for about three-quarters of the film is slightly undone in the last quarter. Disha Pathani as Dhoni's ex-girlfriend, Priyanka, is memorable. Ironically, she is a little more memorable than Kiara Advani as Sakshi Dhoni, the cricketer's wife. The romantic angle takes away a bit from the narrative, which is surprising because Dhoni's other personal details, including his subtly captured relationship with his mother and sister, only add to what made and make "Mahi" tick.

But sadly, the film ends where it should have really reached its peak - at the point where India win the 2011 World Cup. There is no mention of the Indian Premier League, which is odd for a film that has gone to such lengths to stay true to history. While there is some mention of his alleged rivalry with Virender Sehwag, Dhoni's character remains above all controversy. The Justice Mudgal report on the IPL spot-fixing scandal, which put the spotlight on Dhoni's association with Rhiti Sports, isn't allowed to happen before the credits roll. Whether this has something to do with the fact that Rhiti Sports has co-produced the film is anybody's guess. But after three hours, there is only one question that remains - will M S Dhoni be Rajput's moment on the pitch in front of the TRDW selectors, catapulting him into the big league?