M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language biographical sports drama film directed and co-written by Neeraj Pandey. It is based on the life of former Test, ODI and T20I captain of the Indian national cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who is played by Sushant Singh Rajput. The film ensemble cast includes Disha Patani, Kiara Advani, and Anupam Kher. The film chronicles the life of Dhoni from a young age through a series of life events.
The idea of the biopic was put forward by Dhoni's manager, Arun Pandey, after encountering an incident at an airport after the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final. Development began two years later, with the consent of Dhoni. Neeraj Pandey was later approached to helm the film while he was working on Baby. Pandey recruited a number of people for researching into Dhoni's background and his life events. Dhoni eventually became a consultant on the film.
The film was released on 30 September 2016 by Fox Star Studios and received the widest release ever for a Bollywood film across 61 countries. In addition to being released in Hindi language, it was also dubbed in Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi languages, although the Marathi release was later cancelled due to opposition. Upon release, the film became a critical and commercial success. It is the fifth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2016 and sixth highest grossing Indian film of 2016 worldwide .
Plot Mahendra "Mahi" Singh Dhoni is born in Ranchi to Paan Singh, a modest water pump operator. At age fourteen, Mahi is a talented football goalkeeper until his school's cricket coach, Keshav Banerjee, notices his exceptional reflexes and invites him to try out as a wicket-keeper. Mahi rapidly excels at the sport, sharpening his unorthodox batting style to become a dependable cornerstone of the school team.
Years later, Mahi's consistent performances earn him a selection for the regional Ranji Trophy match in Kolkata. However, due to a delayed official notification, he misses his transit window and fails to report to the venue on time despite his friends' frantic efforts to drive him across state borders. To appease his anxious father, who desires financial stability for his son, Mahi accepts a job as a Ticket Collector at the Kharagpur Railway Station. He balances grueling day shifts with late-night practice sessions, eventually securing a spot on the Railways cricket team. During an Under-19 selection tournament, Mahi faces a formidable Punjab team led by Yuvraj Singh, whose monumental 301-run innings overshadows Mahi's squad, though Mahi's raw talent earns him a selection for the Duleep Trophy.
Feeling stifled and deeply depressed by his bureaucratic railway job, Mahi abruptly resigns, declaring to his father that he will dedicate his life entirely to cricket. His risk pays off when his explosive domestic performance catches national attention, leading to his debut for the India national cricket team. During a flight, he meets Priyanka Jha, an office consultant, and the two strike up a deep friendship. Inspired by her encouragement, Mahi scores a breakout international century against Pakistan, and they soon fall in love. On Valentine's Day, while returning home after purchasing a gift for Mahi, Priyanka is killed in a car accident. Devastated by the sudden loss, a grieving Mahi suffers a severe drop in form during India’s disastrous campaign at the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
Mahi gradually channels his grief into his sport and is appointed the captain of the national team. Under his leadership, a young squad triumphs at the inaugural 2007 ICC World Twenty20, followed by an unprecedented run that secures India the top spot in the ICC Test Rankings.
In 2010, while staying at a luxury hotel, Mahi meets Sakshi Singh Rawat, a hotel management intern who fails to recognize him due to his casual attire. Intrigued by her grounding nature, Mahi pursues her, and they begin dating. When Mahi eventually proposes marriage, he gently restrains her from buying him a Valentine's Day gift, protecting himself from the painful association of his past tragedy. Following their wedding, Mahi shifts his focus toward preparing the team for the 2011 Cricket World Cup on home soil.
At the tournament's final match against Sri Lanka in Mumbai, India faces a daunting run chase. Following the early dismissal of Virat Kohli, Captain Dhoni makes the tactical decision to promote himself up the batting order. He plays a resilient, high-pressure innings to steady the run chase. With only four runs remaining, Dhoni hits a historic, match-winning six, sending his family, childhood friends, and the entire nation into celebration. The film concludes with archival footage of the real-life MS Dhoni walking the boundary lines following the historic 2011 victory.
Cast
Production
Development
Development of a Dhoni biopic began after the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final and the discussion about the idea went on over the following years but remained dormant. Then, after a few years, Dhoni was at an airport when a child approached him and asked him a question on motivation. Dhoni sat down with the young boy and spent 5 minutes answering the question. His manager, Arun Pandey, asked why he spent that much time and Dhoni replied how his answer was pivotal in benefiting and motivating the boy. This incident then prompted Pandey to make a film about him saying [to Dhoni] that his story has the power to motivate millions of children like him. After the idea coalesced, Pandey began to convince Dhoni himself in order to adapt his life into a full-length feature film. When he was first approached on the idea of the adaptation, he became a little worried and questioned the need for it. But after being convinced by his peers, all he said was, "Don't misrepresent me. Show me as I am." It took Dhoni two years to finally agree. According to the International Business Times, the film carried a production budget of around .
Writing Pandey was attracted to Dhoni's story not because of his successful cricket career, saying that "it's foolish to chase MS Dhoni's life story only because it's about cricket," but rather to instances and factors that made him the person he is today. Dhoni wasn't involved in writing the script. Pandey recruited a team of researchers who collated data and background information while the director was busy directing Baby (2015). The filmmakers decided that they would only green-light the film once they had a convincing story to tell after the research. Pandey met with Dhoni numerous times over a span of eight months and by the eighth month of their meetings, in 2014, the main arc of the story began to form. Their first meeting took place in Delhi during a cricket match. During their sporadic meetings, Pandey chose not to record and tape their conversations which prompted Dhoni to open up more.
Arun Pandey says 98% of the content in the film is reality. The team undertook two years of research on the various incidents and how they took place. Pandey says "such authenticity would be hard to find even in Hollywood." Pandey revealed several prominent aspects of Dhoni's life that were hidden before including the fact that Dhoni initially disdained cricket and had a predilection for football instead, his signature "helicopter shot" was taught to him by his friend Santosh Lal, he likes women who don't recognise him, he and Yuvraj Singh had close ties even before their respective stardom and it was Dhoni who ousted Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from the team since he wanted to build a young team for the 2011 World Cup with better fielders and he wasn't too happy with the 'fitness' levels of the aforementioned cricketers.
Pandey decided to end the film with the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final since he felt "the arc of the story had a natural high at the 2011 World Cup win." He knew that they were chronicling almost 30 years of a sportsman's life "in a highly compressed manner" and said that had he extended the script to his sudden retirement during an ongoing series, the run time of the film would shoot up to six hours.
Pre-production Neeraj Pandey was in the midst of shooting Baby (2015) when Arun Pandey, the manager of Dhoni, offered him an opportunity of making a biopic based on MS Dhoni. However, Pandey was sceptical and didn't wish to tackle such a subject until he met Dhoni himself. It was only after meeting Dhoni personally – during the second schedule of Baby – that he was convinced to helm the film. Although, to him, he treated the project not as a biopic, but more as an inspiring story. Pandey admits that he is not a fan of Dhoni and doesn't feel guilty about it. But he does have a predilection for cricket and other renowned cricketers like AB de Villiers and Sachin Tendulkar. He explained how not being a fan helped him direct the movie impartially, "I think if you are fan, as a director it would be difficult to be objective and impartial. A fan would only see positives. Even negatives will look like positives for him. So not being a fan helped me direct the movie impartially." It is the director's first biopic film.
Every question that came from the director or any member of the team working on the script was directly answered by Dhoni. He would clear any doubts of the director and Rajput. However, he did not want the film to serve as a whitewash of his life, "One thing I told (Neeraj) Pandey is that this movie should not be to glorify me. It's about the journey of a professional sportsperson and that's what it should depict."
Casting Director Pandey, who had not seen any of Sushant Singh Rajput's films, followed his intuition when it came to casting him. Akshay Kumar wanted to play the lead role and wanted Rajput to play the younger MS Dhoni but Rajput was always the director's first choice given how both Dhoni and Rajput hail from the same part of India, which made it easy for him to get the dialect right and the fact he has a predilection for sports like Dhoni. When he met Rajput and chatted with him for 15 minutes, he knew that the accent, the setting and the milieu they needed to capture would not be a problem. Rajput admits that he is a fan of Dhoni, and describes himself as an "ardent" cricket fan. Rajput's sister is a professional cricketer who once made it to the women's national team, while he himself wasn't very good at the sport no matter how hard he tried, even failing to get selected for the school team.
He found it difficult to get Dhoni's mannerisms right. He said that he did not pretend to be Dhoni, but actually felt like the cricketer while essaying the title role. In order to prepare for his role, he had to go through an exhaustive prolonged training for a period of 18 months before shooting began and watched his videos for hours, to a point that he subconsciously started picking up some of his traits. For instance, in order to grasp Dhoni's trademark "Helicopter shot," the team would carefully analyse it and fix the bowling machine into one spot and then play the same shot at least 200 to 300 times a day for a week to a point that it came naturally to him. He also met Dhoni thrice before filming commenced. Former wicketkeeper Kiran More personally coached Rajput for four months, including wicket-keeping and batting before he started learning Dhoni's body language. He practiced for four hours, starting at 6:00 every morning. Rajput described More as a "tough taskmaster," who treated him like a professional cricketer rather than an actor. Dhoni's batting style was scientifically analysed, learnt and practised and an analyst was called on board for this. Training sessions were recorded and compared with the cricketer's real game. It took a further six months for Rajput to feel confident that he looked and played like Dhoni.
Principal photography