Sarkar Raj – A Review….

So Sarkar Raj was playing this past weekend in STL. Of course it had my favorite actor, Abhishek Bachchan, so I really didn’t want to avoid missing this film. At the same time, Neeraj was too excited to see it because he loved the first one, Sarkar. Even though we had a jammed packed weekend with being in Chicago for a baby shower and then being in Morton, and needing to studying for the midterm exam tomorrow, we still made it over to the theatre in St. Charles to see this movie.

Now I am not going to talk about the story of the movie because you can find that on any other site. I really would like to talk about what Neeraj and I discussed about this movie once it was over. So if in case you have not seen the movie, you may want to stop here because I may give away the ending.

Overall, we both thought the movie was a bit of a let down. The first movie was such a hit, and I don’t think that Ram Gopal Varma would have not expected that he was going to make a movie that would top the first one. Well, if that wasn’t his strategy then he should have made it because he didn’t top the first movie.

There are many reasons for that, and I will discuss it further. First the villians in this movie were really weak. You didn’t see them as villians, they were businessmen, but you couldn’t see that they could do some real damage to anybody. The only one that could have was Govind Namdeo who they killed off first. Secondly, the movie took too long to develop. At the time of interval, you really didn’t have a good idea of what so far has happened, and the roles of the characters were not as clear. Was Subhash Nagre going to play an integral role after the interval? You would say yes, only if Shankar Nagre is out of the picture. The first half was much more informative but not a lot of action. At the interval you were not sitting at the tip of your seat to find out what is going to happen next…. it was like, “Okay the first half of the film is over.” I think that’s a letdown.

All of the action happened in the second half of the movie. Unfortunately you would think that Shankar Nagre would be the one piecing all of the puzzle pieces. Not the case. He gets killed by an assassin sent by the villians, and game is over. Subhash Nagre again takes over and figures out how his son got killed and eliminates them all…one by one. That I don’t think was a great idea for the story. If Shankar is suppose to be the next “Sarkar” then they should have kept with that feeling. At this point you lose faith in the fact that there isn’t going to be another “Sarkar” until Subhash Nagre himself dies. Shankar throughout the movie mentions that he will take care of anybody that tries to get in his way, but unfortunately at the end it shows that he isn’t able to – then.. how could he have ever been able to become the next “Sarkar”?

Then they killed off just about everybody – Shankar and his wife die, the villians die, the assassin dies, Somji dies,….not alot of people are left by the end of the movie. So the next movie is going to be more based on Chickoo, Subhash Nagre’s grandson, who is too little at this point, but eventually will be groomed to take over as the next “Sarkar”.

In this case, I think the story was poorly designed. Yes, staging a story around Shankar Nagre made sense, but letting him die so easily, and now going with the angle that Chickoo will be the next “Sarkar” was not the best move. I think it would have been better if Shankar would have recovered from the assassin trying to kill him, and potentially be still the one who would be able to take over for his father.

The direction itself was not at Ram Gopal Varma’s best. He really needed to do a better job, like he has done phenomenally in his previous films, in keeping the audience more involved. It was hard to determine what has happened in the first half of the movie where usually by interval you are thinking about what will happen in the second half.

Again, this had my favorite actor, his wife, and his real father, so I wouldn’t have missed the film for anything. Everybody’s acting was genuine and great – but it was more around the story that should have been worked on more properly. This could have been awesome film instead of a so-so film.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.