Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Govind Namdeo, Victor Bannerji

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma's right. All his films- at least the good ones-- have a bit of `Godfather' in them. So does `Sarkar Raaj'. It also has Bollywood's First Family in full array, accomplishing several things at one go: giving Pa Bachchan a role he fills with conviction, getting Beta B back on screen after a long gap, and re-confirming our deep- rooted suspicion that there's an actress in Bahu B.

The sequel to `Sarkar' takes the story of Subhash Nagre ( Amitabh) forward, with son Shankar ( Abhishek) having been anointed his successor. It wastes no time in any re-caps : just one brief scene flashes back to the previous film, where the dead elder son ( Kay Kay) is shown. That one laid the ground for why there is an extra-constitutional authority in Mumbai ; here Nagre, who is the thinly-disguised alter-ego of the real-life Thackeray, `gives permission' to an NRI billionaire ( Victor) to set up a power plant in rural Maharashtra. Echoes of Enron are completely intended.

The billionaire's daughter Anita Rajan ( Aishwarya) is the pointsperson on the project, and through her hazel eyes we see the `raaj' of Sarkar : the absolute power he wields over politicians and police and goons, and how his son sets his sights on bigger things. Some of the proceedings are very RGV—the ultra-tight close-ups gobbling up the whole frame, the swelling background score ( not as overwhelming as it usually can get in his films, thanks be), the faces of the bad guys all look very familiar.

... contd.