Sanjay Dutt is making a comeback after the longest of hiatus. The last time he was seen on the big screen was three years ago in a special appearance in PK. The year before that he had been sent to jail for his involvement in an illegal possession of arms case dating back to two decades ago. 
The shooting of his scenes in PK had finished before he was jailed. His last big hit as a hero would have to be more than a decade ago with Lage Raho Munnabhai. Even after his release from jail in 2016, he has been maintaining a low profile. But now Bhoomi, his latest movie as a solo lead hero, has just released. He must be banking on it to announce his return in the Bollywood scheme of things. While it is early to certify whether it has done any wonders at the box office, critics found nothing to clap about. In fact, they didn’t have too many nice words for it. 
The comments ranged from ‘worst movie of the year’ to ‘B grade’ fare. That somewhat dampened the impact Sanjay hoped to make. In any case, he had, even before he went to jail, not been getting hero roles from the big filmmakers. In Agneepath, for instance, he was cast in the villain’s role. But there might be one silver lining in the horizon. Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who produced the Munnabhai movies, has said that there will be a third coming up and it will be directed by Rajkumar Hirani whose combination with 
Sanjay has been very lucrative for all parties. The two Munnabhai movies kept Sanjay alive as a star when his fortunes had all but sunk. Meanwhile, in one event for the promotion of the movie, Sanjay gave a glimpse into how difficult life had been in jail. He was going away from his family for a long time and didn’t want his kids to be visiting him in jail and see him as a prisoner. So his wife told them that their father was away shooting and that they couldn’t speak to him even on phone because it was on a hill where there was no network. 
Once a week, the jail authorities allowed Sanjay to phone his family and the kids were told that he had come down from the hill for that one day. At the event, Sanjay however said now that he was out, in a year or two he would tell his children that he had been in jail.

Playing it safe

After many flops now that he is almost not counted in the same bracket as the other two Khans — Aamir and Salman — Shah Rukh seems to be changing his strategy on which movies to choose. There is one more somewhat experimental project left. He plays a dwarf in Aanand L Rai’s movie which will be his next release in 2018. If that tanks, then Shah Rukh does need a fail-proof fallback. 
That is perhaps why we hear that he might feature in the next edition of the most successful franchise that Bollywood has ever seen – the Dhoom movies. So far John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan have assayed the criminal with a heart of gold and each movie became increasingly bigger blockbusters. The expectation obviously might be that this could be a Rs300 crore movie that Shah Rukh desperately needs in his resume to gain back his superstar status. 
But given his luck, we will have to see it before believing it. The other interesting rumour around Dhoom 4 is that Abhishek Bachchan who played the good cop in all the earlier three movies might have to vacate the spot for Ranveer Singh. But these might all be only rumours. Even Salman was said to be part of Dhoom 4 some time back and that rumour lived a short life.

Overbearing father

Rishi Kapoor is making life very difficult for Ranbir Kapoor. Of course, he does it out of protective paternal instinct but it doesn’t do any good for Ranbir if Rishi goes around badmouthing all the directors who gave his son a flop. He has railed against Anurag Basu in the past after Jagga Jasoos turned out to be a flop. 
Recently when he was at a radio talk show, and the host baited him by asking him to speak on what comes to mind from the word ‘Anurag’, he went on a long rant about Anurag Kashyap and Basu. Kashyap, he said, had a made good movie in Gangs of Wasseypur but Rishi had not been able to understand Bombay Velvet, in which Ranbir acted. 
He said both were good directors but when given big budgets, were like monkeys who had been given toys — they didn’t know what to do with it. Rishi was also in the midst of another controversy when a woman trolled him on Twitter and he sent a private direct message of abuse to her. She, of course, made it public and then Rishi began to get pilloried for acting like a sexist boor.

Row over Ranbir-Mahira images

What is it with Ranbir Kapoor being the usual suspect among film stars to get caught by photographers even when he is having a private moment at the other end of the globe. Some years back, images of him and Katrina Kaif in a beach in Spain became viral. And last week, he was snapped with the actress Mahira Khan, in New York. Earlier they had been photographed together in a Dubai hotel having a talk. 
While tongues had started wagging, then Mahira had put up a cryptic disclaimer of sorts with an Instagram image that said ‘First Of All. No. Second Of All. No.’ The rumours had eventually died down. But in the latest photos taken in New York, Ranbir and Mahira are seen together, each with a cigarette on their lips. 
To be fair, there is nothing that indicates any romance there. It could very well be two friends who were catching up over a smoke. But it does not take much for people to start making all sorts of connections when it comes to Bollywood stars. 
So long as Ranbir remains one of the most eligible bachelors of the film world, he will continue to face reactions like this.


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