My review of Sarkar comes way too late. But what to do. Saw it last night at a friend’s pad.
Story
Sarkar is the story of an indigenous, modern, salt-pepper haired Robin Hood (Amitabh Bachchan) who runs a parallel government to help the needy. His two sons – Vishnu (Kay Kay) and Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) are a study in contrast. The rough-as-a-ruffian Vishnu hates his father for whatever he stands for and calls him a hypocrite while the US returned Shankar adores and worships the man. Vishnu, also a film producer, kills the hero of his film and is thrown out of the house by his father. Sarkar, a.k.a. Subhash Nagre’s enemies – Rashid, Vishram, Mani, and a Chandraswami look alike swami design a two fold plan. They bump off Minister Idealistic Khurana (A wonderful cameo by Anupam Kher) and the blame falls on Sarkar. An attack in prison is foiled by Shankar and soon Sarkar is released on bail. The adversaries now decide to unleash Vishnu on his father. Shankar spoils the party this time also. It’s payback time and one-by-one all the evil doers are eliminated from the face of the earth. Sarkar retires and looks over the balcony with grandchild in arms. Shankar is the new Sarkar. The legacy continues.
Cons
• The character of Sarkar is under developed. Nowhere are defined the reasons of the man’s popularity. Agreed that he helped the common man on rape issues and argued with the Chief Minister on bringing in labor from another state. But are these reasons enough of generating mass hysteria. Where are the public meetings, mass movements and other public interactions? Sorry, but Sarkar simply appears to be a contrived and caricatured portrayal. When Sarkar threatens Rashid with the killer line – Tujhe bhi nahin karne doonga you expect some fireworks. But nothing happens. All that Sarkar keeps doing in the first half is admonishing Vishnu and shedding tears in the second half. Why is the eponymous Sarkar so defensive and passive in approach?
• Shankar’s a devoted lad. He worships his father. And comes to his father’s rescue whenever trouble brews in paradise. But he is so singular in his heroism. A totally unidimensional characterization.
•The villains are cardboard characters straight out of Andha Kanoon and Zulm Ki Hukumat. Rashid began as someone who would terrorize you. But he simply keeps smiling viciously and nodding his head humorously all along. Oh Lord! I’ms scared. The others are not even worth talking about.
• The Govinda-Govinda background chant is definitely irritating. Were they planning to cast Govinda in Shankar’s role?
• The attack on Shankar’s life is so damn filmi. The baddies are shooting and missing and our hero keeps running and winning.
•Sarkar is a story of men so why blame the ladies for being so bloodless? But at least Ramu could have avoided casting Katrina Kaif and Tanisha. And Supriya Pathak – every time she smiled I felt that she was about to break into her Hansa bhabhi act.
•Amitabh Bachchan. The old man is beginning to gore and bore. He has become monotonous. Absolutely monotonous. I was a big Amitabh Bachchan fan but he has now become very repetitive. Even in Black, apart from a couple of scenes, I felt he was largely mediocre. People are going over his brooding act. Forget Marlon Brando, take a peek at Pankaj Kapoor’s Maqbool and see the difference. Amitabh Bachchan now hams till it hurts in each and every movie. Not surprising. I have monitored his career and compared it with that another stalwart – his role model Dilip Kumar who was terrible in his last few movies – Saudagar, Qila etc.
Pros
•The storyline is very powerful.
•Abhishek Bachchan shines in a badly etched role.
•Kay Kay Menon is great as the errant son.
•A few scenes haunt you even after the movie comes to an end – the Rashid-Sarkar meeting; Shankar’s confession to his father about having slayed his brother; Khurana’s death scene
•Ramgopal Verma’s direction despite all the flaws in the screenplay keeps you involved till the very end.
Verdict
As a story, Sarkar is dramatic, chilling and full of possibilities which are never explored. Blame the screenplay on underdeveloped characters and situations. Yet, it is worth a one-time view.