Why Ganguly’s Biopic is a Bad Idea

Bollywood’s sports biopics are often whitewashed — stripped of controversy and seemingly vetted by the sportsperson’s PR team.

Cricket and films, the two most potent ‘religions’ in India, have had unions time and again. At times, the results have been thrilling surprises — like MS Dhoni: The Untold Story — and at others, they've turned into box office flops or forgettable duds, like 83, Azhar, and Shabaash Mithu. The Hindi film industry has also ventured beyond cricket, exploring biopics on a range of other sports — Saina (badminton), Mary Kom (boxing), Budhia Singh: Born to Run (marathon), Soorma (hockey), Toolsidas Junior (snooker), Chandu Champion (Paralympic swimming), and Paan Singh Tomar (steeplechase).  Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (sprinting) was the only film that was well made and looked and felt authentic. Recently, Sourav Ganguly confirmed that a biopic is being made on his life, and actor Rajkummar Rao will play the titular role. Similarly, there have been talks of a biopic on Vinod Kambli for years. The million-dollar question is: why this obsession with sportsperson's biopics? The answer is simple — money. The industry believes that since sports and sportspersons, especially cricketers, are so popular in India, they can capitalise on that popularity.

Up until last year, there was a lot of brouhaha about Chakda ‘Xpress starring Anushka Sharma, based on the life of India’s female cricket star Jhulan Goswami. The film never saw the light of day (Thank God!) despite heavy backing from Netflix. No one knows what exactly happened, but when I saw the teaser of the now-unreleased film, I was shocked! First of all, the actor didn’t look anything like Jhulan. On top of it, the Bengali accent sounded caricaturish. I was immediately repulsed by the lack of authenticity. 

The fact is, Bollywood doesn’t have what it takes to make an authentic biopic. Everything is whitewashed. Take, for example, M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, leave aside the brilliant performance by the late Sushant Singh Rajput, and look at the story… Dhoni is depicted as too good to be true. No controversial aspect of his life is shown, and everything seems like it was screened 10 times through the cricket legend’s PR before adding it to the script. 

Then there was a ‘documentary’ on Sachin Tendulkar titled Sachin: A Billion Dreams. Despite Tendulkar’s legendary status― the ‘master blaster’ who managed to reach dizzying heights, broke countless records, and has billions of fans across the globe ―the film bombed. The reason? It lacked an emotional connection with the audience. 

The problem with Bollywood is that if one film does well, they all jump on the bandwagon to repeat the same magic to earn moolah. If a South Indian film has done well, they want to remake it. Believe me when I say this, to date, not a single Hindi remake of a South Indian film has been better than its original (despite a much bigger budget and production values). The X-factor is always missing. 

Films on sports personalities have it all: an underdog, a struggle phase, a rise to fame, success, sex, drugs, family drama, romance, downfall, and subsequent redemption. However, Bollywood rarely gets it right, and in the quest to please everyone (especially the person being depicted), the film loses its soul.

Coming back to the Ganguly biopic, no doubt Rao is a brilliant actor, but will the makers dare to show the good as well as the flawed side of the sportsman being depicted, or will they do another Dhoni? Also, think about it, who is really interested in watching Sourav Ganguly’s biopic? Rao’s films have not exactly been box-office hits recently, and Ganguly (Dada) is a has-been cricketer who was more in the news back in the day for his alleged extramarital affairs with Nagma and Vaishali Dalmiya and certain other scandals (tiff with Virat Kohli, Chappell–Ganguly controversy, etc.). Only time will tell if the film ever gets made and released. Till then, if you want to watch solid sports-based films, watch the following (no, they are not biographies):  Chak De! India, Iqbal, Kai Po Che!, Saala Khadoos, Rashmi Rocket, Ghoomer, and of course Lagaan.