Abhijit Panse directorial Thackeray, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Amrita Rao and Sudhir Mishra, is a biopic on late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray.
The film hits theaters on the same day as Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. The latter is expected to outperform the Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer. However, that does not mean it is going to be a slouch.
In a conversation with indianexpress.com, film trade analyst Girish Johar had said,“Thackeray will be a strong phenomenon in Maharashtra. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a brilliant actor and the film is being pegged on his shoulders. He looks like a doppelganger of late Shiv Sena leader in the movie and going by the buzz around it, the film will earn around Rs 3-4 crore on day one.”
Johar added that the film might not get that much traction with the North Indian audiences. “People in Maharashtra resonate with Bal Thackeray’s fight. He is a godly figure for them. And, the film is likely to show him as a national hero which he was in his own capacity. So, it is expected to work better among that audience,” he said.
Thackeray received a mixed review from The Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta, who gave it two stars. She said, “Irony doesn’t just die when Thackeray mouths these things. Almost every moment in the movie is a death of irony, the biggest of them being that Nawazuddin Siddiqui, an outsider on both counts of community and religion, plays Balasaheb Thackeray.”
She added, “That Nawaz plays him with flair and conviction, spewing his brand of persuasive polarisation only to make it appear as the most reasonable thing, is the deepest cut.”
