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I am expecting brickbats this time around.
Loads of them.
Plus invectives, mind-numbing gaalis and a delightful assortment of abuses and the end of it.

Sarkaar Raj should NEVER have happened.

No, this is not equating it to the frightening level of His Highness RGV's last outing called RGV Ki Aag, also fondly referred to, by a majority of movie fans as RGV ki AAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGGHH.

Simply put, Sarkaar Raj to me was jarring, predictable and at times purely disorienting.

Yes, am prepared for those raised eyebrows, sneers, frothing tempers and how-dare-you-criticize- that-acting-encyclopedia-called-Big B cussing and curses.

But, I still choose to stand by what I said.

After the debacle of rehashing one of the Nation's best loved Classics, RGV chose to go back to the drawing board and start on what he knew best.

Crafting the 'Factory' brand of noir movies, with earthy dialogues, pithy characterisations, and a dark and taut feel to the whole storyline.

But, I guess, RGV took it too far this time around.

There is absolutely no argument about the craftsmanship and the technical perfection that has gone into the production.The production values are dizzyingly high, the shots have been painstakingly fixed to reinforce the mood of the story all the way till the last shot,and the dialogue deliveries have that stifled,mumbling cadence that somehow seems to blend with the half-dark scene settings.

Unfortunately, THAT seems to be the whole problem.

It was as if, in every scene, RGV was trying very hard to be RGV, with self-imposed quality and technical standard levels that seemed to be kept so dizzyingly high that at times it gave you vertigo.
Come on, this is a movie.
After all, this is about taking the legacy of Sarkaar forward, in the great tradition of sequels that usually aim to do.

If you are somebody who has been closely following his movies, (no, am NOT talking about the summer projects that were released in the name of Factory by people who couldn't distinguish a camera from a camcorder), even with an I Mac and flashlight, you know what I'm talking about, when it comes to technical prowess here.

It is expected that when RGV makes his trademark noire genre, you can expect the best.

Sarkaar Raj looks as if RGV got insecure with himself, as if he lost his grip on his movie making skills and suddenly chose to raise those bars so high that left the viewer dizzy and reeling.

Ms.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, other than being delectable scenery material, as accompanying live prop to Real-life Husband ( Abhishek Bachchan, if you please), doesn't have much to do in the movie.

It is clearly AB's movie. Whether you like it or not.

AB Jr's face doesn't graduate above the scowl, which seem to be surgically implanted till his 'Last' scene.
(Is it a Constitutional by-Law that you have to be brooding, scowling and seen simmering all through out your life, if you happen to be the son of a Godfather? I'm puzzled).

AB is at his best, at home with his liquid baritone, holding every frame like the Patriarch he is.

It was as if every single scene was painfully constructed to end in a punch-line, either by Sarkaar or Sarkaar Junior,s o much so, it felt very unnatural to have a scene which didn't end up that way.

And the Background Score was an experience.

On how not to do a background score for a movie.

Ethnic, earthy folk bites and chants cleverly weaved into the sonic ambiance is a good idea. No doubt about it. But, it shouldn't constantly keep screeching at your nerve endings for every second fleeting emotion conveyed on screen that you almost end up thinking."If I pray hard enough for the next two minutes, will this background score go away? Please God, I paid 250 bucks for this. Please let me not have a brain aneurysm at the end of this. You too are watching this, aren't you Lord?"

The sequel ends with the premise of a sequel in the great tradition of sequels.
Also known as milking the franchise dry.

There is a brilliantly crafted scene at the end of the movie where the stoic yet broken Patriarch does a soliloquy in front of AB Junior's photograph ( Dear Lord, did I give the ending away?). That scene, more or less, best explains the paradox of the movie.

Of the technical mastery of a craftsman who takes himself too far out ,even beyond the accommodating sensibilities of his audience.

So, you may ask, how is the movie?
Is it worth my time?

All I can safely say is this.

' Watch it for the sheer technical perfection of the movie, and for AB.
And if you concentrate hard all along,somewhere along that dizzying collection of scenes, is a story, gasping, and desperately trying to come to life.'

Dear RGV, if this is the same 'treatment' that you have decided for that last part of the Sarkaar Trilogy you have, in one of those dark corners of your creative mind, would you please lend a ear to a suggestion from a Constant Movie Fan?

DON'T DO IT!

For the love of God, PLEASE!.





 

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