Cast: Pawan Kalyan, Kajal Agarwal, Sharath Kelkar, Mukesh Rishi, Thanikella Bharani and Brahmaji
Director: KS Ravindra (Bobby)
After months of speculation and hype, Pawan Kalyan’s Sardaar Gabbar Singh finally released on Friday. PK himself has provided the story and screenplay and his friend Sharat Marar is the producer. In the village of Ratanpur village lives the cruel mining lord Bhairav Singh (Sharad Kelkar), who rules with an iron fist. No one dares raise a voice against him. A royal family headed by Princess Harshi (Kajal Aggarwal) lives in the same village. Harshi wants to help the people and develop the village but can’t do anything because of Bhairav Singh. She asks the government for help and daring cop Sardar Gabbar Singh (Pawan Kalyan) is transferred to the village to set things right.
While Sardar is assessing the situation and formulating a plan of action, he falls in love with Harshi. Meanwhile, Bhairav Singh is trying to grab the princess’ palace and her lands. How Sardar solves the problems of the village and tackles Bhairav Singh is what the film is about. Pawan Kalyan’s earlier film Gabbar Singh was a huge blockbuster and he has gone with the same title this time. The film, however, is not a sequel.
The story is not new, the one about a cop coming to a village and saving the day, winning his lady love on the side, has been done to death. The success of a film like this depends on the narration and the execution, and sadly it has gone horribly wrong in Sardar Gabbar Singh. Aside from a few drama elements, the story is not great; the narration and screenplay are askew as there’s no connectivity between some scenes.
Before the film starts, Pawan Kalyan says that the film is for his fans. And truth be told, only his die-hard fans will enjoy the film. This is K.S. Ravindra’s second film as a director but it seems he didn’t have a clue what was going on.
When it comes to the performance, everything is about Pawan Kalyan. His fans will definitely be impressed with his histrionics. It is delightful to see Pawan Kalyan dancing to the popular veena song from his brother Chiranjeevi’s film. But the antakshari scene in Gabbar Singh was much better than this one. And it is clear that to woo the Hindi audience, PK has chosen mostly Hindi songs in this antakshari. The climax meanwhile is quite uninteresting.
Kajal Aggarwal plays the perfect princess and looks beautiful and elegant. And the chemistry between her and Pawan Kalyan is nice. In fact, she is a breath air in the film. The surprise element is Sharad Kelkar, who plays the villain. The young Marathi actor made his T-town debut with the film and has done a great job. He is good looking and also carries the negative role prominently.
In other characters Mukesh Rishi, Thanikella Bharani, Brahmaji and Ali have done their job.
But once again Brahmanandam has failed to evoke any laughs. The Brahmi-Pawan Kalyan scenes are unnecessary and irritating. Technically, the film has very good visuals thanks to cinematographer Arthur Wilson, and art director Brahma Kadali deserves a pat for creating the set of Ratanpur village set. The dialogues by Burra Sai Madhav too are nice. Some of the dialogues suit Pawan Kalyan’s real-life image as he is now focusing on his political career. While a few of Devi Sri Prasad’s songs are nice, his work in Gabbar Singh was better.
The action scenes have been interestingly choreographed by Ram Laxman. Director K.S. Ravindra however hasn’t concentrate much on editing as some scenes are disjointed and end abruptly. The film leaves one with the feeling that something was missing, perhaps the magic of Pawan Kalyan. Finally, Sardar Gabbar Singh is only for Pawan Kalyan fans, apart from a few entertaining moments, there is nothing to take away from it.
