Sardar: Once a Spy is always a Spy!

It’s a winning year for the Sivakumar family as Suriya won the National Award for Soorarai Pottru  (2020) and the film won the National Award for Best Feature Film. This week saw the release of Karthik Sivakumar’s Sardar (2022) directed by P. S. Mithran. The director has a penchant for thrillers and Sardar adds up to be his next offering in the spy thriller genre with Karthi in a double role.

Now this genre of spy agents has been done to death in Indian cinema, but Mithran’s film offers fresh twists to the plot, making the film enjoyable. The trailer of the film and the out of box promotions before release created enough curiosity for the Karthi venture. The trailer has garnered 8.7 million views on YouTube since its release.

Karthi’s character Vijay Prakash is the face of the Tamil Nadu police and would not mind all the media attention he gets and has his love interest in Shalini (played by Raashii Khanna) and keeps the initial part of the film in Cupid’s control. Actress Sameera’s character Laila) brings a new serious pace to the film. A challenge to find missing files of Raj Bhawan to become more famous than he already was, Vijay sets out to find the missing files which the CBI & the RAW are furiously searching. In course of his journey to find the truth he reunites with his father Chandra Bose aka Sardar who shares a deep connection, previously accused of murdering the National Security Adviser. Without going into the deep plot lines and reveal the climax, the film latches on with its storyline and effective screenplay. Some may find the film long and tedious but overall, it remains a watchable film. The film may suffer due to a weak villainous character and the actor playing it.

The challenge for the viewer will be to decide which of Karthi’s characters Chandra Bose aka Sardar or with Vijay Prakash have they liked and got entertained more. The director walks through a tough rope to serve an old formula film with a certain freshness to keep the viewer glued to the 70 mm screen. Karthi delivers a masala film which is an audience puller with the initial box office numbers of 4.5 to 5 crore are anything to go by. Sardar is a treat to watch for family audiences this Diwali.