Sanjay Dutt’s Top 10 Movies

On Sanjay Dutt’s  Birthday(July 29) , Dutt’s Top 10

1. Hathyaar(1992): Hugely underrated gangster saga directed by J P Dutta where Sanjay Dutt played a boy obsessed with guns who ends up making a profession out of shooting. No film has tapped Dutt’s unique blend of machismo and childlike innocence as effectively. Says director J P Dutta, “There is a child hidden in Sanju’s he-man personality. In Hathyar I explored that child’s accidental journey into guns and crime.” Though the film didn’t click it remains to this day one of Sanjay Dutt’s finest performances.
2. Naam(1986): Written off as a junkie, declared a boxoffice flunky after a series of duds between 1982-85 Sanjay Dutt bounced back with this triumphant Good Boy-Bad Boy saga in which Nutan played the mother torn between Dutt and Kumar Gaurav. Director Mahesh Bhatt gave Dutt a new lease of life
3. Munnabhai MBBS(2003): We’ll never know how first-choice Shah Rukh Khan would have played Munnabhai .Sanjay Dutt embraced the part as though he was born to play the goofy lovable over-aged student in a medical college who spreads happiness everywhere. Abd never mind the sulky Gracie Singh.You can’t win ‘em all.The most endearing hero of Hindi cinema since Rajesh Khanna in Anand. Director Raj Kumar Hirani tapped  the saintly side of Dutt that only his mother knew about.
4. Lage Raho Munnabhai(2006): The sequel to Munnabhai MBBS  was even more of a joyride . Sanjay Dutt played a Gandhian with a flair for getting the tenets wrong.The jaddoo ki jhappi became the universal way of spreading love in the world.Sanju Baba could do  with one of those right now.
5. Vaastav(1999): As Raghu the chawl gangster trying to survive on the slippery streets of  Mumbai  Sanjay Dutt was chillingly raw real and powerful. Director Mahesh Manjrekar captured the essential violence of a  street-child who knows the only way to survive is to pull the trigger first.Many consider this to be Dutt’s finest performance.
6. Khubsoorat(1999): One of Dutt’s most underrated performances and in many ways the precursor to his Munnabhai persona, Sanjay Dutt here played a mysterious con-man who breaks into a dysfunctional family and changes  the life of the daughter of the house Urmila Matondkar .Dutt played the do-gooder with gusto and even sang in his own voice.
7. Khalnaayak(1993): Subhash Ghai’s big blockbuster featured Sanjay Dutt as a terrorist at the same time when he was first arrested and imprisoned.His leery menacing act opposite Madhuri Dixit was a winner.
8. Saajan(1991): Going against his image of the invincible macho man Sanjay Dutt played a physically disabled poet in this three-hankie melodrama about the beauty and her two suitors. Salman Khan was the other guy. But it was Dutt who scored.Limping and reciting awful shaayari.
9. Kubzaa(1988):  Dutt as a reformed hood in this Mahesh Bhatt actioner set the mood for his rebellious image  with this Mahesh Bhatt creation.Watch this film to see how vulnerable Sanjay Dutt looks when playing a cornered social outcast.Dutt and Amrita Singh always made a robust screen pair.
10. Zindaa(2006): Playing a Kafkaesque hero in this Sanjay Gupta-directed thriller Dutt was moving in a mysterious manner  as a man who loses his life and happiness for reasons that he cannot understand. Violent brutal and merciless the film displayed Sanjay Dutt’s appetite for action to full advantage.