This movie demonstrates that Indian film-makers, even if by inchworm steps, are moving away from their archaic song/dance movie-type, and towards the more modern, less emotional, smoothly-flowing, Western movie-type.
Sarkar starts out with a short tribute from the director to The Godfather, saying that he was influenced by it, the first sign of an unusually Western movie. The movie starts out by introducing the audience to the idea of the Sarkar (played by Amitabh Bachchan), and his gang, who help out the commoners in getting revenge on their various enemies. The movie isn’t as predictable as the usual Indian movie, and has less lovey-dovey elements to it, though, because no Indian crowd can be satiated without it, there is a brief love story which ends incompletely. The basic gist of the movie, is that following a series of plots and schemes by the rival gang, Sarkar is put in jail. His son gets him out of jail and has revenge on the rival gang. There is some more to the plot, such as a bad son who turns on the father and tries to kill him in cooperation with the rival gang. This movie is a large step for Indian movie-making, but it remains to be seen if other directors will embrace or throw away this new format.
Article comments
1 - mona
I love amitabh and I hope this works out! I mean, itz not like itz the first time some1 has tried to make movies without song-and-dance! The movies w/out the musical format and the cheesy romance does not appeal to the indian public!!! Those kind of movies become international hits and by "international" I mean in countries other than India!
Being an Indian myself and seeing the conditions, I think the luvoey-dovey musical movies are just another way for indians to dream about being freed from the illogical systems and traditonal chains that bind the country!!!
Aren't I right???
2 - Phillip Winn
Do you see this move toward Western-style filmmaking as a good thing, or a bad thing?
3 - Nikhil R. Mulani
I think the move is a double-edged sword. One thing I like about current Indian movies is that they have a trademark of having emotion in them, which if the move continues, might get erased. But, one thing I dislike about current Indian movies are the extra song/dance scenes. Too many of them make me bored, and the Western move might erase some of that.