Movie Review: Sarkar (Tamil)

Little over a year after Mersal, actor Vijay is back in what's probably an overt political vehicle pandering to his outsized future ambitions. Tamil cinema and politics are perhaps inexorably intertwined, and in his third collaboration with director A. R. Murugadoss after Thuppakki and Kaththi, he couldn't have asked for a better launchpad than Sarkar to advance his political ideology. The only problem? Sarkar (Government) reads more like a campaign brochure than a movie. At its very core, it is a story of a big shot corporate CEO who is forced to fight for the masses after he, in the city just to exercise his suffrage all the way from California, realises to his dismay that his vote has already been cast by someone else. Throw in a corrupt government, greedy politicians who wouldn't hesitate the slightest to kill anyone who dares to upset the status quo, and the psychological "branding" that permeates political beliefs (sadly this angle is never explored), you have all the ingredients in place for a riveting thriller. But in the hands of Murugadoss, the result is at best watchable, punctuated by overly long preachy harangues. That isn't to say Sarkar is bad. The scenes are efficiently put together, if utterly lacking in surprises, giving off the impression that they were assembled by an automaton, or some such thing. It's the kind of film that courses along predictable lines and nothing more, turning it into a mind-numbing, mirthless slog, almost, a perfect embodiment of energy without excitement, spectacle without impact. And how many times have we seen that before?