There's an iconic line in The Dark Knight when Lt. James Gordon says "Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now."
The same scenario somehow applies to Sarkar, the third outing for Thalapathy Vijay and A.R Murugadoss together after the hugely successful Thuppaki and Kaththi. Sarkar comes across as a documentary that is definitely needed for Tamil Nadu's political canvas, but not neccesarily something that Tamil cinema fans would enjoy as a film at this point of time.
On a larger specturm, Sarkar's story talks about something bigger than Vijay's mass persona - the electoral fraud that has become synonym in almost every country (especially in India). But in regards to a film and it's entertainment value, Sarkar fails to entertain the way it's predecessors (Thupakki for example) did. There herein lies the problem.
The film, running over 2 hours 40 minutes starts by setting the stage for Sundar Ramaswamy (Vijay) coming back to India to cast his vote. The earlier scenes somehow tries really hard to project Sundar as a 'corporate criminal' - there's so much talk about how he has managed to shut down companies and how many countries tremble when he decides to come into their nation.
These buildups unfortunately lack any fundamental scenes to convince us that Sudnar is indeed a brilliant corporate businessman. The dialogues glorify him as a business genius but his introduction song shows him dancing at Las Vegas with showgirls - not exactly the level of character establishment that we would have come to expect with A.R Muragodoss.
The movie then immediately shifts focus to Chennai when Sundar finds out, on the day of polling that his vote has already been casted by an unknown - these triggers Sundar to go to court and invoke the 49 (P) section to allow him to cast his vote again. With one small battle won and Sundar readying himself to go back to the States to continue his job as (they did not specify his job either, is he the Google CEO?), he finds himself being threaten by Radha Ravi, the second in line in the winning party.
Triggered by this and being brought to understand the problems that the people face due to electoral fraud and bribery, Sundar decides to utilise the youth power and start off a movement, highlighted in the movie as Oru Viral Puratchi. The rest of the story eventually talks a rather predictable documentary approach to how electoral frauds affect people and tries to invoke a sense of guilt and embarassment to those who have taken money in exchange for votes.
The biggest strength of Sarkar as usual happens to be Vijay. He has completely mastered the art of carrying mass moments and looks at ease delivering dialogues that are loaded with political intentions. It's one thing delivering lines, but it's another to do it with such convictions that it relates to the audience. He completely sells the scenes in where it requires him to talk to the camera, breaking the fourth wall.
Take the post interval scene for example, in where Sundar goes to talk to the people from Ayudhakoopam. After being insulted for not knowing how much a tomato costs, Vijay retorts the question by talking about how economics play a big part in something so small like a tomato. He completely convinces the audience that he is indeed a businessman who is in total control.
In regards to the story, A.R Muragadoss does not sway away from the 'documentary preaching' style he attempted in Kaththi, with a major part of the story attempts to educate the audience on how marketing, branding, and daily life problems is used by politicians to buy votes from the people - after a while, these preachy scenes does get tiresome.
That being said, how else would ARM be able to talk these issues? The only way at the moment seems to be putting these messages sandwiched in between a big mass hero's movie. To that point, Muragodoss scores a sixer.
One of the biggest plus (and a minus) for the movie also happens to be the short romantic angle between Vijay and Keerthy Suresh. Their relationship looks very underdeveloped and unneccesary, only existing in order to comply to the need to have a heroine in a mass movie. The OMG Ponnu song comes as a complete speedbreaker to a post interval sequence. Dont' be suprised if the sequence gets trimmed after the first week.
In regards to music, A.R Rahman's contribution to the film can be summarised with the Oru Viral Puratchi song - the song oozes patrrotisme and invokes the right feeling with the content of the film. That being said, this is one of the worst background scores for a Rahman film in a long time. Many of the background scores reminds us of Mersal and even Chekka Chivantha Vaanam.
In regards to the downside, the film's biggest weakness is Varalakshi's character development. Some of Vijay's biggest hits in the past has always featured a villain that is equally smart. In Sarkar, Varalakshmi unfortunately does not get enough scenes to establish herself as a formidable villain, only coming in the last 25 minutes and is not able to make an impact that is expected. That being said, she makes good use of her screentime.
In summary, Sarkar is one of the films that will defintely help in changing thought processes in Tamil Nadu. Vijay continues to be a flag bearer for actors who use films as a way to send social messages to the masses. The film is loaded with messages, and information that is essential and important to reach the masses in order to facilitate movement and change. Can any other actor be this forthcoming about his intentions for the nation? At the point where his superstardom cannot be any more bigger, a huge kudos to Vijay for the risk.
But, is Sarkar a story that entertains purely from a cinematic viewpoint? ARM compensates the entertainment value with preachy messages about electoral fraud, choosing to believe that Vijay's sole charsima will save the film. To an extent, it does work - but even for Vijay's stardom, it is very difficult to sustain.
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