Movie Review: Sarkar 3, will it hold its “Sarkar Raj”?

Movie Review” “Sarkar 3”
Rating: 2/5
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ronit Roy, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee, Amit Sadh, Yami Gautam, Supriya Pathak and Rohini Hattangadi

Official Sarkar 3 movie trailer

Sarkar 3 opens with a typical Ram Gopal Varma punch line, giving us hopes of him returning to his comfort zone and top form, but the  political drama series falls short of a strong storyline.

Creating a political series having a close resemblance to Maharashtra politics and a Godfather type storytelling is what made most of us like Sarkar, the first in the trilogy. Over time, RGV lost that in the sequels and this time too, he seems to have landed on the wrong port.

Sakar 3 seems to be a rehash of what we have seen before and there’s hardly anything novel here. The double-crossing and betrayals are not crafted cleverly and hence for most of us who have followed the series closely, the twists in the second half are pretty much predictable.

At many junctures, the story seems extremely hurried. To top it all, the dialogues are extremely corny and make you chuckle every once in a while, especially the whole sequence of Jackie Shroff’s character and his dimwit girlfriend.

Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) is still bossing around, but there is a slight change in his style and modus operandi. But unlike Sarkar 1 And 2, he has started to react more to the people around him. It’s a graceful shift to a character that understands the delicate relationship between politics and democracy. He still slurps tea, talks with long pauses and makes guests uncomfortable by not looking in their eyes.

Amitabh Bachchan is the glue that’s holding this film together. His baritone, his body-language as Sarkar is so magnificent that its difficult to look beyond him in the film. In all three installments, his work has been spot on and continues to be the same here. Although the same can’t be said about his usage of Marathi!

Amit Sadh stars in the important role of Sarkar’s grandson, Shivaji. Unfortunately, the actor has neither the screen presence of becoming the next Sarkar nor the brashness of his father, Vishnu’s (Kay Kay Menon) character, to hold your attention. Sadh struggles to get his body language right and has nothing promising to offer in spite of a meaty role.

Ronit Roy as Gokul does what he knows best. His measured performance creates the right impact. 

Manoj Bajpayee as Govind Deshpande has not only an amazing opening scene but also an interesting war of words with Sarkar in one scene. He delivers impressive performance but his screen time is sadly shorter than expected.

Yami Gautam as Anu is merely seen giving cold-vengeful stares throughout the film. It’s as if she is a part of a photoshoot. A poor performance in a poorly written role.

Supriya Pathak who has been shown to be Sarkar’s wife, reprises her role for this film too and does a good job.