Much awaited biographical film Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer ‘Thackeray‘ released this Friday. The film explores the journey of Bal Keshav Thackeray from a cartoonist in The Free Press journal to the most powerful political leader in Maharashtra. It gives us a glimpse of his personal, professional and political life.
One can not complain that the film only glorifies the most influential leader and controversial figure of the Maharashtra politics as it shows both good and bad shade of Balasaheb. Like his every other role, Nawazuddin has pulled off his character of Bal Thackeray with equal perfection. He did not even try to change his voice or pick up the Marathi accent but with minimal makeup and fine details, he presented Thackeray amazingly.
The film starts in the late ’60s and journeys through 70s, 80s, and 90s revealing every aspect of the Thackeray while becoming who he was known to be. It shows the truth of his career, portraying him as the vivacious and aggressive leader that he was.
Most part of the first half of the movie is presented in black and white, which was clever as it helped with the period setting. The CGI used to old Bombay was also very smartly used.
During his political career, the man was fearless and though he never competed in any elections, he was the most respected leader. He openly accepted standing in the court that his people from Shiv Sena contributed to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. He was the man who stood by his words and held his beliefs strongly and the director kept that in mind while making the movie.
Amrita Rao as Meenatai Thackeray did not have much impact on the audience while other characters perfectly supported Siddiqui.
Sanjay Raut, as a writer of the film, did not sugar coat the character, and honestly presented the larger than life persona as he was.
The Thackeray effect in Maharashtra can be understood by just one dialogue from the trailer itself, where someone asks to control the state which is going out of government’s hand and he gets an answer that the only man who can do this is Balasaheb Thackeray.