Mumbai is burning and only one man can douse the fire, proposes the trailer for the biopic about Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray. Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the Mumbai strongman, the trailer traces Bal Thackeray’s rise as a political leader and his nativist politics and also touches upon his alleged role in inciting violence during the 1992 and 1993 Mumbai riots that followed the Babri Masjid demolition. “One man stood for his people, his state, his country. Fearless. Worshipped. Controversial. Legendary,” the trailer declares.
Thackeray, a political cartoonist and journalist, founded the Shiv Sena in 1966. He died on November 17, 2012.
Directed by Abhijit Panse, the Marathi-Hindi bilingual also stars Amrita Rao and will be released on January 25, 2019, two days after the Shiv Sena founder’s 93rd birth anniversary and on the same day as Kangana Ranaut’s Rani Jhansi biopic Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi. Thackeray has been produced by Sanjay Raut, the Shiv Sena Member of Parliament and executive editor of the party’s mouthpiece, Saamna, Carnival Motion Pictures and Viacom18 Motion Pictures.
The film reportedly ran into trouble with the Central Board of Film Certification ahead of its trailer launch. News18 said that the censor board objected to some of the dialogue in connection with the Babri Masjid demolition and on Thackeray’s anti-migrant stance. “Just like Balasaheb was controversial, but his thoughts gave direction to the country, the movie on Balasaheb too will be like that,” Raut told the publication.
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