Sakath movie review: Golden Star Ganesh's Suni-directorial is a murder mystery loaded with fun

3.5/5

Story: Balu (Ganesh), an aspiring singer, has a crush on the host of a popular music reality show. The show, though, banks on TRP-spinning sob stories of contestants over actual talent, so, Balu accomplishes his mission by pretending to be visually-challenged. All’s well, until he inadvertently ‘witnesses’ a murder that’s made to look like a hit-and-run. How can he bring the culprits to justice?

Review: When director Suni was once asked if his new film, Sakath, was anything like Andhadhun, given that his protagonist Balu (Ganesh) pretends to be visually-challenged for an ulterior motive, he denied it vehemently. This despite the fact that Balu is seen watching Andhadhun for inspiration for his ‘performance’ as a blind person and scenes that have you wondering is he or is he not visually challenged.

Yet, Sakath is no Andhadhun; it is a quirky comedy that uses the protagonist’s supposed disability as a means to an end. Aspiring singer Balu figures that the easiest way to get on to a music reality show hosted by his crush, Mayuri (Surbhi Puranik), is to have a backstory that the TRP-hungry makers lap up. He decides that pretending to be visually-challenged will get him the brownie points he’s after, while also keeping him close to Mayuri.

Just when the stars seem to be aligning perfectly for Balu’s plan, he ‘witnesses’ a murder that is then made to look like a hit-and-run case. Called in to give his statement in court, he makes it his mission to prove the wrong-doing when he realizes that Mayuri has a personal interest in the case. Turns out the victim ran a school for children with physical disabilities, on prime real estate – the motive for the murder. At the school, Balu meets Nakshatra (Nishvika) a visually-challenged teacher, whose life revolves around the children there. Can Balu prevent the school, or rather its real estate, from falling into the wrong hands?

From start-to-finish, Sakath is a Ganesh vehicle and the actor delights in his role as Balu. Ganesh lives and breathes Balu, making it difficult to imagine any other actor in the role. He delivers his lines with such earnestness that after a point even you, like the rest of the characters, believe he may not be lying about his disability after all. The Suni-Ganesh combination also offers quite a few laughs along the way. Even in supposedly serious scenes, Suni’s brand of humour will have you chuckling for all the right reasons. My only grouse was in how lame the story arc of the culprit ended eventually. It just went against the whole fabric of having built this person up as a cold and calculating murderer. And although Surbhi gets the meatier role in terms of screen time, Nishvika walks away with the better written one that she owns with a measured performance. 

The music by Judah Sandhy is also worth a mention, especially Shuruvagide. It does seem that Kannada music directors are reserving their best works for the beautiful vocals of Sid Sriram, and the singer has a sure-shot winner in Shuruvagide.

Verdict: Sakath is the kind of movie that you’d want to go to the theatres to with the entire family. It’s a paisa vasool fun ride with Ganesh at his best as always.