Sagar Alias Jacky Malayalam Movie
If I had the liberty to re-name a film that's already been released, I'd rename this one as 'Much Ado about Nothing'. But the great English bard, who created a wonderful play with that title, would probably groan in his grave if I did so. Disappointing! That's all I can say about Amal Neerad's second directorial outing, the much hyped 'Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded'. In fact it was one of the most awaited commercial films in Malayalam in the past few months. And all the waiting has now come to naught.
If it was not for the hype and the hoopla surrounding the film, it would probably have passed off as an OK kind of film. But because of the advertising overkill, expectations ran high, and unless it was spectacularly brilliant, it was doomed to disappoint. And disappoint, it does. Given the build-up that the film was given, being lenient in criticizing 'Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded' wouldn't be fair.
This is the story in a nutshell. Sagar, alias Jacky, is an underworld don who operates internationally. He gets to deal with the likes of Naina, who bases himself in Dubai and is exactly what you'd expect a typical high profile filmy villain to be. Naina wants to do away with Sagar, because the latter outsmarts him every time. And then there is Michael Rosario and his brothers who operate from Goa and are known as the Rosario brothers. Michael Rosario too wants to eliminate Sagar for his own reasons.
In the meantime Indu, who's the daughter of the State Chief Minister and whose husband Manoj is Sagar's friend, is helped time and again by Sagar in extremely critical situations, much to the chagrin of her brother Hari. Into this scenario comes a television reporter, Arathy Menon, who works for a national channel. She has some bad notions about Sagar, but after meeting him (presumably), she gets to change her opinion and even starts loving him, (a machination by the scenarist/director to introduce a duet song, which of course is greeted with a lot of booing!).
Well, that and not much more, is what you get from 'Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded'. Excellently choreographed fight sequences and technically brilliant execution, leading alas, to a totally predictable climax that brings you to the end of the ordeal.
Performance-wise the film belongs to Mohanlal and him alone. He passes muster in the title role and proves himself a wonderfully brilliant actor once again. The others in the cast, Manoj K. Jayan (as Manoj), Sampath (as Michael Rosario), Nedumudi Venu (as the Chief Minister), Ganesh Kumar (as Hari) etc fit into their roles perfectly well. Suman, who is doing his first film in Malayalam, is again cast in a stereotyped role like he used to be during his first innings in films. The members in Sagar's gang (played by Sumeeth Naval, Vinayakan, and Anu Anand etc) are good.
One wonders why there is a character like Ashokan (played to perfection by the versatile Jagathy Sreekumar) in Sagar's gang. Or is there a tradition of recruiting such people in the underworld like the court jesters of yore? Shobhana does well as Indu, and it's good to see Amal Neerad has presented her with all her charm, something that was not seen in some of her more recent films like Shaji Kailas' 'Valiyettan' or IV Sasi's 'Shradhdha'. Bhavana is good as Arathy Menon while the same cannot be said of Bala who does a brief role as a Police Officer investigating Sagar.
Technically 'Sagar alias Jackie Reloaded' is a class apart from the usual Malayalam movies. The brilliant technician that he is, Amal Neerad as the director and also as the cinematographer, has done an excellent job. He has also managed to elicit the best results from all the technicians working with him, including the art-director and the editor. The film is stylishly crafted, as was expected by all of us who had seen 'Big B', Amal's debut directorial venture and also his earlier films as cinematographer.
An excellent work on that front, but on the content side, 'Sagar alias Jacky Reloaded' has nothing much to offer. Of the songs, the first one filmed on Jyothirmayi (in a guest role) is rather good, but the second one, filmed on Bhavana and Mohanlal, though good and excellently shot, invites much booing as it hampers the flow of the film. Though stylishly made, the pace of the film is rather slow even when you get to the interval, which is a good one and a half hours into the film.
Post interval, the film fizzles out in about 45 minutes and comes to a screeching halt, rounded off with a Rap number while the screen shows a montage of various scenes from the film. The Rap song might even remind you of the one in 'Chandni Chowk to China', but it's not too bad. The notable thing about this song (with which the end credits roll), is that Mohanlal's son Pranav, who was reported to be doing a guest role in the film, makes a fleeting appearance, only to vanish into nowhere. (Then why create so much hype about him acting in the movie?!).
In short, 'Sagar alias Jacky Reloaded' is a stylishly made film, but lacks in substance and in my honest opinion, is not even as good as 'Big B'. But it must be stated that the likes of Amal Neerad, who are technically sound and very much in control of all departments of filmmaking, will do Malayalam Cinema a world of good in the long run. We only hope that Amal soon 'Reloads' himself and comes back with a film that's slick and has substance to boot.
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