Bhoomi: Needed a better one from Sanju

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sidhant Gupta, Sharad Kelkar

Rated: 4/10

No, not this one for a comeback Sanju baba! You needed to return with some amount of noise, positive, hilarious, becoming noise. Not as a weary and imploding father of a sexually assaulted girl exploding with a revenge drama that is engineered to make you cringe you to the core. Also, your rape and revenge drama is the third one in a row this season, after Matr and Mom on the same firmament, similar canvas and identical revenge template — hunt them down and kill them after the legal way fails. The “second rape” through the justice system is also an echo.

Yes, Sanju baba rape is a dastardly crime of our society, something that needs to be axed completely. But, after your incarceration and absence from the big screens, your fans were wanting to be in happy times with you, yearning to relive memories of the Munnabhai and Circuit kinds. Not this heavy on the conscience story that could have been bookmarked for the next one perhaps? Also, as your daughter Bhoomi (ably played by a gifted Aditi Rao Hydari) suggested in the film, perhaps a shave would have given you some clean marks, especially when you face was dominating the screen with in-your-face close-ups. Yes, you bring emotions to the fare, but let’s just laugh about life for now please?

Bhoomi, the dreary and dark canvas gets bogged down by weary direction and too much father-daughter melodrama of the 70s kind for which the modern generation has little time or patience.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 24 September, 2017