Sarpatta Parambarai, Pa. Ranjith’s and Arya starrer – a sports drama got everything right for the audience to remain glued to the film. More than boxing it has a heavy dose of drama and other emotive scenes. The film is quite punchy and is certainly a wholesome entertainer.
Sarpatta Parambarai set in the backdrop of 1970s North Madras era takes the audience back in time to a space and culture. From opening scene – a Madras Port loader itches to get away from work because a boxing event is about to get underway and he cannot afford to miss the action – the film rivets around the story of clans who once fought tooth and nail for supremacy.
Sarpatta Parambarai Kabilan (Arya), is not loaded with surprises but the historical context brings the energy in the movie, and highlights the drama around Indian sports films .
Sarpatta Parambarai a start to finish entertainer
The movie also drags your attention to caste dynamics in a segregated part of town, the political upheavals of the mid 1970s triggered by the imposition of Emergency and the dissolution of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, and the historical backdrop of the area’s boxing culture.
The film is all about one man’s quest for glory in the face of an unsettling social churn that affects an entire clan as it fights to live down years of defeat.
Sarpatta Parambarai portrayal of people battling oppression and political overreach has a contemporary resonance. “The Prime Minister’s autocracy is degrading our democracy,” says Rangan (Pasupathy), a revered boxing coach and political activist in an address to his clan, which is down and out in more ways than one. His warning is a call to action at multiple levels – the moral, the personal, the physical and the political – for a people up against acts that are aimed at trampling upon their rights.
The only way the Sarpatta clan – coach Rangan and wannabe boxer Kabilan are a part of it, the former its past and latter its future to find a fighter who can stand up to Vembuli (John Kokken), the star boxer of the rival Idiyappa clan, a man who has been winning for three straight years.
The man who can earn the right to challenge Vembuli, has to surmount a series of hurdles. Kabilan, an aspiring boxer that Rangan has little faith in is the only hope. Kabilan, on his part, worships the very ground that Rangan treads on.
The young boxer must work his way up and secure the right to represent his clan in a do-or-die bout. His path has several challenges. For one, his mother Bakkiyam (Anupama Kumar) is dead against Kabilan donning boxing gloves because she believes it was the sport that drove her husband to alcoholism, gang wars and death.
Sarpatta Parambarai Review – Absolutely watch worthy entertainer
Moreover, Kabilan has to contend with rivals in his own camp – coach Rangan’s son Vetriselvan (Kalaiyarasan) and Raman (Santosh Pratap), who is desperate to reclaim the legacy of a late uncle, who once controlled the Sarpatta clan. What queers the pitch the most is the prospect of being led astray even as success begins to come his way.
The first hour of Sarpatta Parambarai is a breeze – pulsating, pacy and profoundly engaging. This is the part of the film that is devoted to the conflicted Kabilan’s struggle to be accepted as a boxer worth his salt. His progress is slow, the film isn’t. It crackles with raw energy as the male protagonist, tentative and timid to begin with, begins to assert himself and makes headway in a sport that takes a heavy toll on its exponents.
A large part of the second half of the nearly three-hour film is far less convincing as the now-married Kabilan – his wife Mariamma (Dushara Vijayan) is a woman of substance who isn’t going to die wondering what life has in store for her – wrestles with domestic strife and activities that reduce him to an emotional and physical wreck. Mercifully, the final half-hour regains some of the frisson of the film’s first half and helps Sarpatta Parambarai end on a high.
Director Pa. Ranjith, whose focus is on the men in the ring and outside it, but his penchant for creating strong women characters comes to the fore in the portrayal of Mariamma.
While Arya dominates the show with a performance that aptly combines tough physicality and psychological fragility, Sarpatta Parambarai is filled with characters who do much more than to providing support to the protagonist. They contribute to making the film an effectively composite, vivid tableau.
Among those who stand out in particular are John Vijay as Kevin, a contemporary of Kabilan’s late father and the young boxer’s one-man cheer squad, and Shabeer Kallarakkal as Dancing Rose, a boxer with footwork that could put a ballerina in the shade.
Watch Sarpatta Parambarai online
Sarpatta Parambarai is a joy to watch and for sports enthusiast is quite a compelling entertainer.
Sapatta Parambarai is streaming on Amzon Prime