A decent attempt

Rating: 6/10 (14 October 2016)

M.S Dhoni - the untold story - It seems as if the makers have not altered or exaggerated any element of M.S. Dhoni's life for the purpose of making the movie more viewer friendly, which makes it a genuine biopic. Something to be appreciated.
In terms of acting, I would say Sushant Singh Rajut did an extremely good work, and so did the young actor who played M.S. Dhoni as a kid. The director has convincingly captured the atmosphere of the place where Dhoni grew up. The middle class family, the city of Ranchi etc.
Things change as the movie progresses to the second half post intermission. In the second half, the director gets engrossed in linking the movie with clips of actual games in which Dhoni has played. A lot of screen time is devoted to filming the game on ground as it would appear in late 1990s when viewed on the television and they have also edited footage of the game so that it seems that Sushant Singh Rajput (who is supposed to be Dhoni) is on the field with players like Yuvraj Singh and Tendulkar (not actors playing the part, but the players themselves). In the attempt to concentrate on this, I feel the director missed out on some interesting and important bits. For example - I would like to see more about the process when Dhoni was selected to be the captain or when Dhoni was selected in the Indian team itself. As far as the captaincy is concerned, the movie does not dwell on it all - there is one scene when Dhoni is an player in the team and in the next scene he is the captain. At the time of his selection in the Indian team, there is about 2 minutes of screen time but no emphasis is given to the process of his selection. Also, there is the time when Dhoni is not selected in the team but Yuvraj Singh is because Yuvraj Singh is a much better player and Dhoni says that he needs to practice more - however, there is nothing about how he practices or the steps he takes to make his game better. I would have also liked to see more about his relationship with Sakshi or how his fame changed the dynamics between his friends back home etc. I would have liked to see why he took the decision to change the batting order in the World cup game which they finally won. The director spends less than 10 seconds to show the media created controversies between Dhoni and other players, I would have liked to see more about the implications of these rumors.
The movie is titled M.S. Dhoni - the untold story - but everything shown are common known facts about Dhoni's life - the untold story would be to show how Dhoni felt/reacted at the time he was going through these events, his strategy decisions and blunders.
All in all, at 3 hours and 4 mins, this is pretty long movie. Inspite of that, it seems the director kept on cutting sub-plots in the middle due to lack of time. I feel a little less screen time on filming/editing Sushant Singh Rajput in with real players and more screen time for the actual story would have helped.
In its current form, the second half of the movie feels more like a documentary. A good documentary, but a documentary nonetheless.