Sarkar Raj Review

"There is a thin line difference between loyalty of years and treachery."
"To kill some one is murder... to kill some one at the right time is RAAJNEETI."

Couldn't resist picking up some dialogues from the new movie, Sarkar Raj. So I'm back to movie reviews again. I saw this movie few days back and have been thinking about writing some thing about it. Sarkar Raj is a sequel to the earlier movie Sarkar, made by Ram Gopal Verma. With series of big flops and small disappointments, RGV come back to what he does best, portrayal of the malign side of politics and underworld. Although Sarkar Raj is not exactly a political film, nor is it a film based on underworld nor it is an action film. Its a mix of all of them.

The movie begins with Sarkar's (Subhash Nagre a.k.a. Amitabh Bachhan) birthday celebrations at the Nagre household amidst all the fanfare and usual meetings at the Sarkar office, held by Shankar Nagre (played by Abhishek) . (Reminds me of the Godfather I, RGV has tried hard to emulate, or better the shades of intensity and darkness.) So between all these visitors, they have a Lady CEO of a Shepperd power plant, Anita Ranjan (Played by Aishwarya) visiting them with a new proposal of setting up a plant at Thakerwadi (Nagre's Abode). With initial rejections and objections from Sarkar camp, they agree and decide to visit the place in order to convince the 40000 people dwelling in Thakerwadi of the benefits of the plant. But this also will mean their relocation and rehabilitation. This gives rise to bitter mud slinging political movement across Maharashtra and emergence of Sanjay Somji, a new leader of the common man. The movie manages to rivet you between Shankar and Anita's struggle for state's betterment through their dream power plant project and Somji's quest for political power. The political opportunist and businessmen are let loose to twitch already uneasy Sarkar camp in a bid to obliterate Shankar and his claim to fame. A bomb blows Shankar's 2 months pregnant wife away right at their heart and Shankar falters in a blink and you miss situation. This leads to the old faithful Chander, defecting.

The Sarkar camp loses too much in the fierce battle more for survival than for supremacy. But in the end all that begins well also ends well, although not that much. The movie is more to do with the new ideologies being forced in the old way of running a family business, or whatever they call it. It features exceptional performances from Amitabh Bachhan, Govind Namdeo (as Hasan Kazi), Upendra Limaye (as Kantilal Vora) and Dilip Prabhawalkar in a short but important role of 'Ravji.' Aishwarya has come off as a big surprise for me too. Abhishek however is shade behind the lines. He lacks the convictions he showed in Yuva (by far his best performance till date) or Guru. Overall no one from the cast and crew disappoints. Backed by excellent back ground score and stupendous cinematography, Sarkar Raj comes out as a dark, tragic but a sterling power packed movie.

I would recommend "should watch" and give 4 stars! ****