There are few reasons to watch Sarkar 3, after the nearly unanimous hostile critical reception. Film companion even called it an act of film terrorism (Baradwaj Rangan was far more kind). But it was a Tuesday night when tickets are selling at half the price. Even more importantly, long after its release I was impressed by Ram Gopal Varma’s outlandish “Not A Love Story” with its close embrace of voyeurism, crazy CCTV POV, and obsessively deploying Varma’s own Rangeela song to absurdly contrast the protagonist with Rangeela. Sarkar 3 surely has its weaknesses, but I think it is unfair to call it an act of film terrorism. It is likely that the reviewer had not watched the third installation of another franchise that released this earlier year, which should rank only slightly behind Inglorious Bastreds for its ability to assault a movie audience - Si3. In comparison to Sarkar 3, Si3 was a fucking genocide.
Sarkar 3 is about a turf war where Subash Nagre’s enemies conspire with a person in his inner circle to bring about his downfall. The drama stretches thin a thread bare plot in an attempt to unsuccessfully manufacture a thriller about who could possibly be the snitch. The writing is ordinary except for one well written scene where Govinda (Manoj Bajpai) and Nagre (Amitabh Bacchan) face off. Govinda comes across as the political strong man who looks down upon Nagre (in fact, Govinda is so disgusted that literally he is refusing to look Nagre in the eyes), even as Nagre makes an effort to reach out to him from a position of weakness. In other places, the writer operates by having suspects from Nagre’s inner circle (Gopal and Shivaji) face off each other in contrived situations and subjecting us to realms of dialogue that tell us each character’s flimsy motivations for wanting to betray Nagre. When the resolution comes in the climax it is thoroughly disappointing. It is only made worse by how the reveal simply happens now over a monologue - “You might think that you have got this. But we have simply played you all along so that you will conveniently walk in here during climax, so that we can murder you. Smart. Hahahahahaha. Close up of villain’s face. Close up. Close up. Cut. You are already dead. Boom”.
Despite the shoddy writing, Varma’s competent direction lifts Sarkar 3 into realms of watchability. When the first half of the film meanders along, he rousingly stages a scene in the back drop of a Ganapathi Visarjan to kick the film back to life. Surely Varma appears to be distracted at times - by focusing on inanimate objects in the foreground while the action in the background plays out in a blur, or cutting to close up shots of a pug’s statue, perhaps as a stand in for Nagre’s condescension, or framing characters within weird shaped frames or using a Dutch angle for a bed-ridden Mrs. Nagre’s point of view. But in general when it comes to staging scenes Varma is consistently old school, and in good control. Just to name a few aspects - the effective blocking and intentional camera moves in a scene where Nagre and his inner circle watch Govinda’s mother accuse him on TV; as Nagre evicts Shivaji from the gang, the latter is shrouded in darkness (it is as if Varma going - if the writing is gives me little, I will give you not even that); neat ensemble staging in the scene when Shivaji joins forces with Nagre’s enemies.
Perhaps the only thing Varma does to play to the gallery is with the character of Michael Valya (played by Jackie Shroff), a loose cannon that never ends up firing despite its disproportionate screen time (so much so that one of many Valya’s missives open the second half). Varma has not shied away from objectifying women, but Valya’s girlfriend represents an objectification that is unexpectedly casual, in contrast to the flamboyant objectification of Mahie Gill’s character in “Not A Love Story”. In that film you see, a disturbing sex scene is made even more unsettling by a dead man’s foot sticking out at an odd angle in the foreground. Sarkar 3 works to an extent as a thriller largely because Varma continues to be good at unsettling the audience.
Varma makes scenes linger a little bit longer - when Anu laughs at Shivaji’s naivety or when they board a train to escape an assassination attempt. He has camera rapidly circle a character in 360 degrees, only to shoot him to a sudden death. He redeploys the same technique again to unsettling effect on the two main characters between inter cuts, as they prepare for a final face off. It is premature to declare that Varma has lost it, when he can conjure a thriller out of this material. May be he is just bored.
Sarkar 3 is about a turf war where Subash Nagre’s enemies conspire with a person in his inner circle to bring about his downfall. The drama stretches thin a thread bare plot in an attempt to unsuccessfully manufacture a thriller about who could possibly be the snitch. The writing is ordinary except for one well written scene where Govinda (Manoj Bajpai) and Nagre (Amitabh Bacchan) face off. Govinda comes across as the political strong man who looks down upon Nagre (in fact, Govinda is so disgusted that literally he is refusing to look Nagre in the eyes), even as Nagre makes an effort to reach out to him from a position of weakness. In other places, the writer operates by having suspects from Nagre’s inner circle (Gopal and Shivaji) face off each other in contrived situations and subjecting us to realms of dialogue that tell us each character’s flimsy motivations for wanting to betray Nagre. When the resolution comes in the climax it is thoroughly disappointing. It is only made worse by how the reveal simply happens now over a monologue - “You might think that you have got this. But we have simply played you all along so that you will conveniently walk in here during climax, so that we can murder you. Smart. Hahahahahaha. Close up of villain’s face. Close up. Close up. Cut. You are already dead. Boom”.
Despite the shoddy writing, Varma’s competent direction lifts Sarkar 3 into realms of watchability. When the first half of the film meanders along, he rousingly stages a scene in the back drop of a Ganapathi Visarjan to kick the film back to life. Surely Varma appears to be distracted at times - by focusing on inanimate objects in the foreground while the action in the background plays out in a blur, or cutting to close up shots of a pug’s statue, perhaps as a stand in for Nagre’s condescension, or framing characters within weird shaped frames or using a Dutch angle for a bed-ridden Mrs. Nagre’s point of view. But in general when it comes to staging scenes Varma is consistently old school, and in good control. Just to name a few aspects - the effective blocking and intentional camera moves in a scene where Nagre and his inner circle watch Govinda’s mother accuse him on TV; as Nagre evicts Shivaji from the gang, the latter is shrouded in darkness (it is as if Varma going - if the writing is gives me little, I will give you not even that); neat ensemble staging in the scene when Shivaji joins forces with Nagre’s enemies.
Perhaps the only thing Varma does to play to the gallery is with the character of Michael Valya (played by Jackie Shroff), a loose cannon that never ends up firing despite its disproportionate screen time (so much so that one of many Valya’s missives open the second half). Varma has not shied away from objectifying women, but Valya’s girlfriend represents an objectification that is unexpectedly casual, in contrast to the flamboyant objectification of Mahie Gill’s character in “Not A Love Story”. In that film you see, a disturbing sex scene is made even more unsettling by a dead man’s foot sticking out at an odd angle in the foreground. Sarkar 3 works to an extent as a thriller largely because Varma continues to be good at unsettling the audience.
Varma makes scenes linger a little bit longer - when Anu laughs at Shivaji’s naivety or when they board a train to escape an assassination attempt. He has camera rapidly circle a character in 360 degrees, only to shoot him to a sudden death. He redeploys the same technique again to unsettling effect on the two main characters between inter cuts, as they prepare for a final face off. It is premature to declare that Varma has lost it, when he can conjure a thriller out of this material. May be he is just bored.
