Sarkar Raj: Get Him While He’s Down Cause He’s Gonna Come Back with a Magnum and then You Gotta Ask Yourself:’Do I Feel Lucky?’ Well Do Ya, PUNK
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A typical Ram Gopal Varma interview is always banal. Even as the media taxes its imagination trying to serve it up with choice tabloid bits, it is at best a politically correct, uneventful even lazy drawl lit up only when a glimmer of arrogance slips in or an apology or when he mentions a forthcoming project (another remake of Sholay!). However as opposed to Mahesh Bhatt banality or Karan Johar banality, RGV’s tired comments present an enigma. Here’s a guy, smarter than the average director, with trademark auteur style- an absolute original, creator of more than a few influential films that ventured into largely untrodden territory to break new ground and a host of interesting flawed works, dream merchant for so many unorthodox faces and talents, still in his middle ages, ballsy beyond doubt and till a while ago, THE name to reckon with as Bollywood enters into a transitory phase- and he comes of mouthing near-predictables with a hardly changing hangdog expression. Even in his filmography one can find the blandness crop up noticeably twice- one with ‘Jungle’ which followed the box office disaster of ‘Mast’ and later with ‘Sarkar’ on the heels of the Diwali day bombing of ‘Naach’- surefire bread and butter movies and so that the rest of the time he can continue….
… taking a giant piss-take on every pretension and foible of the movie industry he works in and the mechanism that surrounds it. Behind the bland replies, feeble apologies and hangdog face sits a master trickster, troublemaker and subversive. He’s no paper tiger dissident but rather a perverse defiler. He has the most perverse vision in Bollywood and not even all the critical barbs directed at him these days can equal even one tenth of perversion that he inflicted on them by ruining with his filthy paws the nation’s collectively cherished celluloid moment ‘Sholay’ by adapting it into the vulgar spectacle of the arrogantly titled ‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag’. It didn’t work as a movie but it was never meant to. It was a dirty provocative romp not unlike Bob Dylan’s electric phase and the backlash was severe and still continues to be without any sign of abating. Can’t blame the critics! What does one do when nothing is holy? But the sheer balls of one of the most defiant piss-takes in an industry where a ‘Sirji’ hierarchy still looms prominent must be lauded. In fact, if 2007 will go down in history as an year in which Bollywood shed several of its conventions and caught the first flight of a new wave, ‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag’ would be its poster moment.
At around an hour and forty minutes into RGV’s latest ‘Sarkar Raj’ sequel to his 2005 super-hit ‘Sarkar’…
Till that point however it is regular even blander-than-the-usual-bland RGV. Skewed angles. Moody frames. Jarring chants on the soundtrack. Claustrophobic close-ups. Rhythmic pulpy dialogues. Tough guy extras. Unsavory looking character actors. Heavy Silences. A blurring interplay of shadow and light almost sublimating characters into silhouettes and smudges. Rituals- both public and private. Blacks. Grays. Whites. RGVs. The works.
‘Sarkar Raj’ picks up sometime after ‘Sarkar’ ended. A single ruthless execution sequence in the beginning deftly establishes not just the tone and pace of the movie but also all that has happened and the time passed since the original ended with Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) taking over the reigns of his father Subhash Nagre’s (Amitabh Bachchan) de-facto fiefdom of Maharashtra. Shankar has noticeably matured- he’s mostly solemn with a permanent grimace on his face, he has a confident strut and the most interesting part of the development of the character is that he has turned stubborn and cocky with the loss of his innocence coinciding with his inheritance of almost absolute power. Subash, whom we first see celebrating his 60th birthday at his fortress-like bungalow, is noticeably feeling his age and also now that he is no more ‘Sarkar’ has grouchy moments when he senses the times pass him by. It is the birthday sequence that first made me uncomfortable. And the discomfort is the tabloid and till the aforementioned hour and forty minutes moment, I couldn’t help but debate with myself whether RGV is infact indulging the tabloid or it is all so much excess baggage. So while we have Subash Nagre tell his supporters the extent of pride that he feels for his son we also have another unashamed Amitabh Bachchan rave about Abhishek Bachchan. One can only imagine the squirm as to what happens to this equation when Aishwarya Bachchan-Rai steps into the picture as Anita, daughter of a NRI industrial magnate played by Victor Banerjee, who has plans of setting up a power plant in the Nagre fiefdom. We have Nagre Sr’s initial rejection of the proposal even as Abhishek Bachchan decides to go ahead if only with an eye on the future and over his tours of the countryside with Mademoiselle Anita they bond over the fact that they had so little choice when it came to choosing lives for themselves because of their overbearing fathers. Playing the assembly of evil this time are Govind Namdeo as Hasan Qazi, the facilitator of the power plant project, Sayaji Shinde as Karunesh Kaanga, a dunderheaded mercenary chief minister hopeful and Upendra Limaye as Kantilal Vohra who would like the power plant to be located in Gujarat. Adding another hue and further tabloid subtext is Raj Thackeray double Somji (Rajesh Shringarpore) who leads the locals in a violent civil unrest against the Nagres/Bachans and quickly ascends the political ladder. We are even introduced to Somji’s maternal grandfather Raosaheb, a Gandhian and also Nagre Sr’s political guru played by Lage Raho Munnabhai’s Gandhi, Dileep Prabhawalkar.
Not that till the hour and forty minute moment the movie is without any merits. There are occasional moments where emotional subtleties among the characters overpower the tabloid like when father and son connect awkwardly and one can almost sense Shankar’s lost innocence and his unspoken discontent. There are a couple of tempestuous montages- one of high winds, Somji’s wild sloganeering and jarring music and the other of the civil strife in which RGV commits to celluloid what a very high Jimi Hendrix did to guitar solos at Woodstock 69. They are cackling moments and smack of self-indulgence that only auteurs can give in to and carry off with verve. Also similar is the almost surreal shootout sequence in which Shankar and his two trusted henchmen take on a pack of anonymous gunmen amongst eerie white smoke and burning trees. It’s the character actors who provide the best moments with Sayaji Shinde enjoying the comic brand of evil that he personalized in Shool and Upendra Limaye normally seen ranting and raving in Bhandarkar travesties exuding a cool and unsavory menace. It’s Govind Namdeo however who is the bonafide scene stealer. He’s a serpentine presence. Watch him how he mixes flamboyance with a rotten core as he slides towards Shankar hissing in that accented Namdeo drawl,” I’m your friend.” For anybody who savored Namdeo’s ‘intreshting pushy cat’ in ‘Johnny Gaddar’ this is the next best thing. It is his character that first acknowledges the tabloid subtext when he raves that what the public desires is entertainment and that they shall have that, following which a sudden major twist shellshocks the narrative and this pulpy, sentimental moment heralds the ‘Interval’.
And then at forty minutes past an hour, the moment arrives. Tabloidisation is absolute. The greatest embarrassment of all is about to unfold on screen. Point your fingers and laugh. Deride. Giggle. Ridicule. RGV’s lost it. It’s the dumps for him. Beyond any redemption. Not even a million…
This is about as far as you get.
You won’t have the time to change that goofy expression on your face. I didn’t.
It’s like the trickster conned you into opening your mouth, closing your eyes and stuck a magnum down your throat.
What just… what the… did you….
Magnificent perversion. The hangdog breaks into an evil grin as he brings out his filthy paws and dirty vision and delivers one potshot of much magnitude and repercussion that all pretensions and illusions implode in on itself and what emerges is pure and powerful cinema. Like the proverbial carpet under your feet, the tabloid is swept off and the Bachchan family saga gives away. This is high mischief, the most sophisticated con and what magnificent perversion… what balls… what sheer balls! Masterstrokes are rarely so sick, twisted and vulgar and RGV makes a poetic slow motion spectacle of it.
A brief ritualistic moment of redemption plays out after this defining moment and a figure stretches like an imposing mortal against the dull and infinite sky. What follows is the darkest pulp on steroids and like RGV himself would put it- ‘Sab Kuch Niji Hain’. Nothing is sacred. All facades will collapse. Characters don’t just die, they are violated sacrilegiously. Not even long standing relationships are spared. Nothing stands against the fury. The Godfather goes for a toss. As does the Thackeray. The original ‘Sarkar’ seems nothing more than a flimsy pack of lies. Loyalty is a pretense. The Gandhian is yet another and impotent to boot. A nihilistic fury damns it all. What you are watching is nothing short of an apocalypse in progress. Nothing will survive.
The tempest subsides and the trickster has a last one up his sleeve. After some needlessly prolonged sentimentality RGV moves in for the final shot.
In a film that deliberately took an extremely ambivalent and uncomfortable stand on the corporate, the last shot comes as a debilitating critique and while this in itself could be sufficient conclusion, the masterstroke which is played out at the very same moment will take time to sink in. But once it sinks in, you can cut straight through to the brilliance at the core. It an ouroboros (a snake swallowing its own tail) of a critique, a double edged sword. After all, when everything is defiled why should the central character be spared? The final illusion falls.
‘Sab Kuch Niji Hain’
‘Sarkar Raj’ is by far and till date, the ‘film of the year’. The flaws go deep, there are parts which drip tedium, there are parts that make you squirm but it possesses, and I repeat, the balls to stand with legs wide apart and take one giant piss-take. No wonder the critics are up in arms, picketing sometimes with single minded purpose- this is a movie out to offend with a vengeance. All the while, I’m sure, RGV smiles that trickster smile. I would like to believe ‘Sarkar Raj’ as him washing his hands off the Bachchan family and with ‘Phoonk’ and ‘Contract’ (most probably the regular bland) onwards, he develops an obsession with another muse. But you never know. That’s always part of the deal with this perverse bastard. He is three things, that these days, are one rarer than the other- an original, a subversive and an enigma.
(sounds by radioblogclub)
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
ek minute, lemme clear the way for this first….
and now lying in front of u in absolute obeisance, ‘thalaivareeee VAAAzhga” :-)
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Review your Review MAN!! Understand one thing, sharing onces thought means being comprehensible,,,,and unfortunately you are not,,sab ram gopal verma banna chahtey hai?????— TRUST me this movie is worth a watch although its not a classic ,, but its better off than any of the TASHANS goig around nowadays!!
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Glad.
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Completely agree with you Siddharth. And by the way,excellently put. Whtes, blacks, greys, RGVs…
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Check out Rangan’s review – http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/06/07/review-sarkar-raj-aamir/
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What I can interpret from your article is that u are very much disappointed with the movie (Specially with the twist in the tale )…
OK … I will take it as my expectations are also not fully filled but let me remind you that it is one of the finest movies ever made by RGV …..
The POWER of the BIG bachchan had to be shown thats why it was titled Sarkar RAJ to showcase that no matter he is 60 or 65 , he still rules MUMBAI and no aira gaira NETA log can get away after what they did in the movie …
My favourites are : –
Watch the scene when Abhishek waves his hand in front of the Public … notice the expression on the face of Big B …
Nobody .. Nobody could have given better expressions …
The scene where Abhishek hugs Big B after telling him that he has no regrets for killing bhaiyaa .. again a classic shot where Big B’s arms are just hung in air and abhishek pats him on the back and then he raises his arms to hug him… Great Scene !!!
The Last scene when Big B says to Raoji … “Kya karu ” … “Kya karu mai iskaa …” .. Look at the Anger on his face …
I loved the movie for these scenes , for the dialogues (sharp and crisp… Ekdum to the Point .. No bakwass) ..
Background score was a bit heavy smtimes but Effetive …
Amitabh Bachchan , at his Best again ..
Abhishek , very much mature and improved …
Aishwarya — My God … She is the real Aphrodite … She looked beautiful as never before ….
I agree that the script could have been better but comparing it to Aa, Darling and James,It was a MASTERPIECE . Period.
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Sid, nail on the head..absolutely well put..in fact, after seeing it the day before, I had clearly understood how he as a hoodwink master, had all of us befuddled…the banal, the tedium, the same..all the while when he was planning the rug pull..the “take that” moment..it is not about this movie..it all started from Naach..somewhere RGV has been telling us..”Boss, bahut ho gaya..I cannot give you the same arcs, the same nonsense, the same gutter sensibility”..of course, this thinking also had its pitfalls..we did hate him for his AAG..but he has done the rug pull act..”bastards..am never gonna give in to ya guys..take this..lemme overturn your sensibilities..let me move the story beyond the known arcs..”..otherwise how does one look at a the lead gone support getting to be the honorary lead again..the real lead bumped off..the evil getting done in by a bout of vigilante justice by not the guy you were thinking about..oh gosh..this guy has gone and turned all conventions around..and he does not start and end scenes here..he just concentrates on taking the essence of a development in a scene..then switch..keeping that hollering music as the continuity device..boss, this guy has “take that attitude” all over the place!!
Finally..to an extra constitutional road to the development of Maharashtra..why??..is he telling us something here too or just that he has taken a convenient way ahead for story development..or he ignores the fine prints of story development totally these days..thats for chumma chinna guys, man!!!
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Why is a bad sequel of a very bad film being given so much intellectual inspection? Where does Sarkar’s money come from? He does not take ‘rishwat’ so how the hell is he maintaining such a big house and a personal army? Is he some businessman? What exactly is his business and how does he earn from it? This is something very basic. The audience has to know about it. Only then do the ‘moral complexities’ of the film have any context.
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(We are not watching an Abbas-Mustan or David Dhawan movie, where we are advised to keep our brains at home.)
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It is said in the course of the film that Sarkar is a ‘gunda’ and this is supported by the fact that he has lots of deadly henchmen to do his dirty work like killing, maiming, threatening, riding motorcycles etc. Again, how does Sarkar pay his gundas? Do political parties pay him? This is again unlikely because Sarkar himself seems to be the owner of a political party (with a yellow-red flag).
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This begs another question. Do rich people donate to Sarkar’s political party? Does he coerce them (like a forced ‘hafta’ arrangement)? Do they give him money out of sheer love and respect? What exactly is this man’s gig?
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Abhishek Bachchan drones all through the movie about the ‘power plant’ (which is not exactly his idea in the first place but of some NRI businessman’s). What is in it for Abhishek? Development of Maharashtra? This is the most fake sounding, lamest excuse of a motivation for a grey character in a supposedly ‘auteur’-minded, ’subversive’ movie. This is a joke. Bad scriptwriting at its worst.
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Everything seems to be happening in a vacuum. Amitabh is brooding in a vacuum. Abhishek is scowling in a vacuum. Aishwarya is, I don’t know, ‘being in a happy place’ in a vacuum. The villains are croaking in a vacuum.
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And everything seems to be happening in close-ups. Any type of momentary respite from this closeness is compensated by the camera angles, which have a life of their own, like really spoilt brats who don’t give you the tiniest of chances to settle down and relax.
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And then there is that background score, straight from Sarkar, in all its irritating glory. The worst RGV background score ever.
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Avoid this movie like plague. And pray for RGV.
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good writeup…even after witnessing the “twist in the tale/tail” i couldn’t believe it for some times…he really pulled the rug…great comeback…
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Classic,except for certain arrogant camera work
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and u guys gotta read this…
Ramu blog
classic….
battlelines are getting drawn everyday these days…
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Awesome write-up .. this.
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@rocky…
do u think where bal thackerey’s money comes from…?..
u exactly mentioned where his money came from…..
and i think audience is smart enough to know that too..
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@rocky
don’t you mean a very very bad sequel of a bad film?
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@ashwin
Yes, audience is smart enough. But both the movies are glorifying the power, without delving into the means used to achieve that power. There is a big big vacuum there. The filmmaker is taking the easiest way out. This is not subversion. This is not ‘ballsy’ cinema. This is just bad.
@Neeraja
You are right.
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I’ll make it short:
1.Abhishek Bachchan Is a Bad actor.
2.RGV surely cant handle subtle emotions.(Aish’s father dies but she is more interested in listening to why and how sarkar killed him and what are the future plans of SARKAR and his seriously reduced family.)
3.The movie is good.
4.Though not as good as the review makes it out to be.
5.I dont kno what sid pillai would do if some movie of the calibre of godfather comes out.He has used every word that signifies good in this review…THATS WHY… PEOPLE GET A GRIP….
5.The guy who wrote the 9th comment has pretty good points..but we all kno it doesnt work that way
6.Amitabh Bachchan is simply exceptional..get it….simply exceptional.Aish was pretty good too!
7.RGVs villains might go on to become cult figures.They hv got the STYLE MAN!
8.Men above 40,with a slight paunch and slightly well to do love these kind of movies in which obtaining power any way possible is as right as having ladoos on Ganesh chaturthi.
9.Abhishek Bachchan is a bad actor.
ITS NOT SHORT I KNO…
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Sid, i think u r also a rejected wanna be director from bollywood.y i am saying this,rather than reviewing the movie u r using this site to mouthing Ramu.u people r perverts of so called bollywood crap(johars,chopras…).always u people r running after Anuraag and Ramu.r u bribed off or something else.r u angry that these guys r not doing ur kind of films(pyaar hain sub,jaan dedunga…).how much u r getting to write this review,i will give u double than that and pls join as asst.director to them.And stop writing here and leave..it could be great relief to indian cinema.
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@ 18
Dude where did that come from…Cool down man!
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@thirumal
Well Said buddy ….
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Bwlalhahahahah!!!
I think you are also wannabe director! Straight from Rediffland.
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