The final 45 minutes of this two-hour film is brilliant. Intense and riveting. Amitabh takes on the ghost of Brando. If only the rest of the film had been as good. Director Ram Gopal Varma goes back to the well with this follow-up tale about the Mafia King of Mumbai. It follows Sarkar from 2005 with a sprawling story of power, ambition, betrayal and politics. Perhaps, it takes on too much with a large cast of characters that are hard to keep straight and a complex plot that never emotionally connects till that ending. Not much has changed since the ending of Sarkar; Sarkar (Amitabh) still heads his syndicate with a mix of ruthlessness and populism, his son Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) has taken over the day to day running while Sarkar slowly pulls back into retirement, Shankar ended up marrying the girl (Tanishaa Mukerji) his family favored and outside groups are still conspiring against them. Wanting to kill them.


A foreign conglomerate comes to Sarkar with a proposition. They want to build a power plant in a rural area outside of Mumbai that Sarkar rules. But they will have to displace 40,000 farmers from their villages to build it. He refuses but Shankar convinces him that this plant will benefit the area. It doesn't hurt that the point person on the conglomerate side is the daughter of the owner and played by Aishwarya Rai with those huge glistening dollop sized green eyes. She and Abhishek had gotten married the year before the film. A small confession to make. It was Aishwarya that finally got me into Bollywood. I had this impression from late night films that I happened upon that Bollywood actresses were chunky and spent much of the film running around trees. Was I ever wrong. A friend in our Subway Cinema group pressured me to watch Taal. The film is weird and fun - and where I first learned that in Bollywood films you romantically chase a woman by stalking her - but the musical numbers are fabulous and when I saw Aishwarya in a wet sari dance number I was hooked.  A few other actresses came along to displace her as my favorite - Kajol, Rani, Sharmila, Asha Parekh - but she was Miss World so it's just not me. So, I was a bit disappointed with her flower vase role here. The final shot of her is fabulous but also the last shot of the film and so doesn't fulfill its promise. 


A few opponents try to derail the plan - a rabble rouser attempts to turn the populace against them by telling them - likely the truth - that this is just the big city coming to turn them out of their homes and that the electricity will go to Mumbai - and a group that wants to move the project to another part of India and are willing to kill to get it done.  This all plods along with conversation after conversation about the deal and how to overcome the opposition. None of it is all the exciting. But then they screw with Sarkar's family. Now it's personal. You may as well dig your own grave and climb in. And it gets really good. There are no song and dance numbers but songs play over a few scenes to good effect. There is a Sarkar 3! It isn't supposed to be very good - 4.9 on IMDB but if I can get hold of it I will watch it. It was made in 2017 so Amitabh is getting up there.

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