The image is etched into the brain of every Indian cricket fan. It is April 2, 2011. Mumbai is sweating. The Wankhede is a sea of blue. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with that stoic, unreadable face, swings his bat and sends a Nuwan Kulasekara delivery into the stands. He doesn't jump. He doesn't scream. He just watches it sail.
Basically, that is where the ms dhoni story movie begins and ends, but the three hours in between are what actually turned a sports biopic into a cultural phenomenon. Honestly, calling M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story a "movie" feels a bit small. For a lot of us, it was a collective therapy session and a masterclass in grit.
The Performance Nobody Saw Coming
When Neeraj Pandey announced he was making a movie about the then-active captain of the Indian cricket team, people were skeptical. I mean, how do you play a guy whose face is on every second billboard? You can't just put on a wig and call it a day.
Sushant Singh Rajput didn't just act; he possessed the role. He reportedly spent 13 months training with former Indian wicketkeeper Kiran More. Think about that. Over a year of squatting behind wickets until his knees screamed, just to get the stance right. He didn't just learn the "helicopter shot"—which, fun fact, was actually taught to Dhoni by his late friend Santosh Lal—he learned the "rhythm" of Dhoni.
The most insane part? Sushant prepared a list of 250 questions for Dhoni. Real, deep-dive questions. He wanted to know what Dhoni felt in the gap between a ball being bowled and it hitting the bat. Dhoni eventually got annoyed with the constant interrogation, but you can see the result on screen. When Sushant walks down those stairs at Wankhede, the gait, the shoulder shrug, the slight adjustment of the helmet—it’s eerie.
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What the MS Dhoni Story Movie Actually "Untold"
The marketing hammered the "untold" part pretty hard. And yeah, it delivered on the early years. Most people knew Dhoni was a Ticket Collector (TTE) in Kharagpur, but seeing the mundanity of it was different. The damp walls of the railway quarters. The 10-by-10 rooms. The crushing weight of a father’s "safe" dreams vs. a son’s "impossible" ones.
Anupam Kher’s portrayal of Paan Singh Dhoni is probably the most relatable "Indian Dad" performance in recent history. He wasn't a villain; he was just a man who worked as a pump operator and didn't want his son to end up broke. That tension is the soul of the first half.
The Real People Behind the Legend
The movie shines a light on the support system that usually gets ignored in the highlight reels:
- Keshav Banerjee: The school coach who forced a goalkeeper to pick up gloves for cricket.
- The Friends: Paramjit Singh and the gang who literally drove across states to get Dhoni to a match on time.
- Santosh Lal: The friend who taught him the Thappad Shot (the original name for the helicopter shot) and unfortunately passed away due to pancreatitis in 2013.
The Things They Left Out (The "Grey" Areas)
Look, we have to be honest here. As much as we love the film, it’s a sanitized version of reality. It was co-produced by Arun Pandey, Dhoni’s long-time friend and manager. Naturally, it’s not going to be a "hard-hitting exposé."
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There is zero mention of Dhoni’s elder brother, Narendra Singh Dhoni. He exists in real life, but in the movie? Poof. Gone. When asked about it, Narendra once mentioned he didn't have much of a role in Mahi's cricketing life, so he didn't mind being left out. Still, it feels weird.
Then there’s the dressing room politics. The movie hints at a rift when Dhoni wants to drop "three senior players" (widely understood to be Laxman, Ganguly, and Dravid) during the 2008 CB series in Australia. But it stays at a surface level. It avoids the IPL spot-fixing scandals, the Chennai Super Kings ban, and the complexities of the BCCI power struggles.
Why the Movie Still Ranks as a GOAT Biopic
Despite the "propaganda" labels some critics threw at it, the ms dhoni story movie works because it’s a human story first and a cricket story second. The tragedy of Priyanka Jha, Dhoni's first girlfriend who died in an accident, gave the "Captain Cool" persona a layer of vulnerability we never saw on TV.
The VFX was also surprisingly good for 2016. Face-morphing Sushant onto real footage of the 2011 World Cup was seamless. It made the triumph feel earned.
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Actionable Takeaways for Fans and Creatives
If you’re watching this for inspiration or looking at how to tell a story like this, here is the real tea:
- Focus on the "Before": The reason people love this movie isn't the trophies; it's the Kharagpur railway platform. If you're telling a story, spend 70% of your time on the struggle, not the win.
- Physicality Matters: If you’re an actor or creator, "looking the part" is 10% of the job. Mimicking the internal "rhythm" of a person—the way they breathe or pause—is the other 90%.
- Acknowledging the Ghost: Every legend has a "Santosh Lal"—someone who gave them a tool they used to conquer the world but didn't get to see the victory. Never leave that person out of your narrative.
The movie ends with the 2011 win, which is poetic, though a bit of a letdown if you wanted to see the "Captain Dhoni" era of 2013-2019. But maybe that’s for a sequel that’ll never happen. For now, the 2016 film remains the definitive version of the man from Ranchi who decided that being a ticket collector wasn't enough.
To truly appreciate the depth of the film, watch the training videos of Sushant Singh Rajput on YouTube. Seeing the sweat that went into a single "helicopter shot" makes you realize why this movie still tops the charts on streaming platforms ten years later.