The Telugu film could be described as a tale of two halves: while the first half feels distracted and crammed, the second half is engaging and fun
There’s no doubt that the Baasha template is back in vogue in commercial Indian cinema, and Sailesh Kolanu’s latest, Saindhav, exemplifies just that. The ‘sleeping lion’ trope, as it were, first revealed itself to great effect nearly three decades ago in Suresh Krishna’s now-cult film starring Rajinikanth. Since then, one has seen the duality of the Indian ‘hero’ — the calm, tamed exterior set against the raging interior — being the subject of several mainstream films, including the very recent hits like Leo and Salaar: Part 1 — Ceasefire.
Kolanu, though, takes things a notch up with his new film and invokes not just Baasha but also his Hollywood counterpart, John Wick. In one of the early scenes in Saindhav, Venkatesh’s titular character is spoken of in the third person and is referred to as ‘SaiKo’ (his full name being Saindhav Koneru) which, of course, is a play on ‘psycho’. We learn that the film is set in a fictional port city named Chandraprastha which, much like in John Wick, is a crime-infested quasi-world. There’s a cartel just like in the Keanu Reeves-led franchise that is as diabolical and convoluted as it can get, and just as you guessed, Saindhav was once a part of it.
Saindhav, we quickly learn, is now a doting father whose only source of happiness is his daughter Gayathri (Ssara Palekar). The man has clearly been carrying the baggage of his past but the presence of the little girl in his life is all he needs to wade through the remainder of it. Until tragedy strikes and Gayathri is diagnosed with the nearly incurable disease of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Saindhav must now find ways to get a whopping amount of money to save his daughter.
Venkatesh plays a doting father, Saindhav, whose only source of happiness is his daughter Gayathri (Ssara Palekar).
Sailesh Kolanu, interestingly, doesn’t try to hide his inspirations and, in fact, doubles down on the aspect as the narrative moves forward. After we are introduced to the protagonist, his little family, the villains, the world, the emotional crutch, etc., we are also presented with a special character named ‘Manas’, played by Tamil actor Arya. Manas serves the same purpose that someone like John Leguizamo does in the first John Wick, as someone who steps in for Saindhav during dire straits. Almost every feature of the Telugu film seems derived — the setting, the emotional drive, the politics, etc. — but where Kolanu is to prove himself is by subverting our expectations, by proving that this is HIS movie after all. Unfortunately, he doesn’t fully succeed in doing that.
The lack of solid antagonism
The main shortcoming, if you could call it that, in Saindhav is that it lacks an antagonist who is really worth our time and attention. Sailesh Kolanu, who has also written the script, presents not one but multiple hard-boiled, ruthless criminals but none of them make any solid impressions on us. Take Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s character Vikas Malik, for instance. On the elitist panel of bosses in the cartel (Mukesh Rishi’s Vishwamitra being the chief of all), he is introduced to us as this guy who rose through the ranks by starting all the way from the streets. Vikas Malik carries this as a chip on the shoulder and guards his current position with all his might because, unlike others, he has earned it.
In one of the confrontations with cartel royalty Michael (played by Jisshu Sengupta), Vikas condescends by calling him a “nepo kid". While the line, in itself, is a tad mistimed and cheesy, the sentiment behind is made clear. Vikas Malik might be the outsider but he now wants to own the cartel.
On paper, a character of this kind is supposed to resonate something deep and meaningful with us. Yes, he is the bad guy but when seen through a different lens, we ought to feel that he is justified in whatever he does. But Vikas Malik is in turn rendered as an over-the-top man-child who is just plain silly. We hear him yell out ‘Ben Stokes’ (not kidding) numerous times in an attempt to self-censor and not use the popular Hindi ‘BC’ profanity. We see him crush on his associate Jasmine relentlessly and not muster the courage to say it out to her. We see him chop off heads, hatch the most wicked plans to kill hundreds of children, generate manic laughter and participate in the entire gamut of evildoing. And yet Vikas Malik remains a paper-thin character who is just not interesting.
And that’s the case with all the other baddies in Saindhav. None of them — also including an under-used Jisshu Sengupta and an unusually overdramatic Andrea Jeremiah (as Jasmine) — manage to push the hero to that tipping point and release that catharsis that we seek from a film of this kind. Instead, the hero does the unleashing of the inner beast on his own without that necessary external push, and when you see that happening, it is clear that something’s amiss by a good margin.
A Tale of Two Halves
Another concern with Saindhav is that the film is either trying too hard to evoke sentiments in us or is found completely distracted from its emotional core. Somehow, Sailesh Kolanu doesn’t find the right balance and the added task of catering to Venkatesh’s image ends up quite heavy on him. The screenplay, as a result, ends up being patchy and the first half, in particular, works sparingly because there’s so much happening in the story.
Saindhav is an interesting experiment, but the film is let down by the lack of originality on the writer-director’s part.
The second half, however, packs all the mayhem that we were looking for all along and I felt that this entire portion was quite engaging and fun. There’s no doubt that a film of Saindhav’s kind is a bit of a departure for Sailesh Kolanu, who has previously worked with two plot-heavy ideas in the HIT franchise. His latest film, though, is quite simple in terms of plot and this means that he had to communicate the depth and the essence not through twists and turns but through hyperbolic physical action. Again, he succeeds at the job intermittently and his best moves are visible in the second half of the film through all the relentless action.
It helps the writer-director that Santhosh Narayanan’s background score adds that layer of energy and zest that the film needed. While the songs feel a tad too on-the-nose, the BGM holds together the spirit of the film.
Venkatesh, Shraddha Srinath shine
Saindhav, of course, marks Venkatesh Daggubati’s 75th film and the actor looks in great form. Although one senses that the screenplay could have been smarter in depicting the emotional highs and lows of the dad-daughter dynamic, and had not resorted to clichés, there is a palpable intensity that Venkatesh carries to make up for the flaws. The 63-year-old actor wields great control of the pitch of his character and lets his demeanour or body language do all the talking.
I was also quite impressed with how the Saindhav-Mano (his neighbour, played by Shraddha Srinath) equation was deftly handled in the film. Sailesh Kolanu ensures that the two characters are never caught in a stereotypical love story but have a spark of romance swirling between them at all points. It’s a rather interesting way of dealing with the age-old trope and the writer-director does well in that regard.
Shraddha Srinath, as a footnote, also gets to bust out some nice action in a sequence involving a snazzy Aston Martin and Saindhav on the phone line, guiding her through.
Overall, Saindhav is an interesting experiment after all, but the film is let down by the lack of originality on the writer-director’s part. His influences, style and treatment are vividly clear but the film somehow doesn’t draw us close to its crux. But, should you be in the mood for a slick actioner, then you can certainly give this one a go.
