Sarkar | The Godfather

I'd been wanting to highlight the similarities between the Bollywood flick Sarkar (Director: Ram Gopal Varma) and the original Hollywood movie The Godfather (Director: Francis Ford Coppola), but was lazy enough not to do it.

I just came across a news article on indiatimes.com (dated 21 August 2007) which does the same and is surely an interesting and informative read for the layman. Here I'm producing the same for interested readers:



“… While there is little information on the back story of Sarkar (Amitabh Bachchan) he has a similar reputation as Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). Both of them are perceived to be kind and generous individuals who strongly believe in staying honorable even though they indulge in illegal activities. Both of them also survive an attack on their life when they refuse to make a deal on moral grounds. Sarkar and The Godfather refused to use their power for a drug deal.

The son Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) undergoes a similar transformation like Michael Corleone (Al Pacino). While Michael returns to his family from the military service following the end of World War II, Shankar comes home from studying in the United States. Shankar and Michael go from being unlikely candidates to mob bosses of the respective families. Neither of them plan on getting into the ‘family business’ but are forced to due to the prevailing circumstances.

Both families also have a Judas among them as Vishnu (Kay Kay Menon) is similar to Fredo the elder brother of Michael. Both of them betray the trust of the household simply to attain more power. Vishnu takes on the personality of the hotheaded Sonny Corleone since Fredo was shown to be the weak-willed one. Both of them are killed on the orders of their younger brother (Shankar and Michael) when it is found that they betrayed the family. “Never go against the family”, says Michael Corleone.

The gangs of Sarkar and the Godfather share an uneasy relationship with the other gangs of the city. The other gangs refuse to abide by their ideals and want to overthrow the family’s rule. This causes a gang war to erupt with the destruction of all opposing gangs. Both films show the deaths of other gang bosses towards the end of the film. Interestingly both films end with the patriarchs playing their grandson while this is the scene where Vito Corleone gets a heart attack and dies the Sarkar is shown to survive. ...”


Hmm! So this pretty much sums up what I intended to highlight.