There have been plenty of excellent films that tackle plenty of themes all at once, but Saindhav feels like a bunch of unrelated ideas strung together as an excuse for cool action set pieces. We’re first presented with the idea that violent video games are being used to recruit children for terrorist groups, but in response to this is a pretty violent protagonist that does over-the-top killings complete with explosions. His justification is that he’s doing it for money for his sick daughter, whose treatment is exorbitantly expensive. Both of these ideas should be discussed, and the cast tries to make the best of it, but Saindhav just combines these ideas to justify the glorified violence they’re supposedly critiquing.
The father of a sick child takes on a criminal gang running a pharmaceutical racket.
In dystopian port city Chandraprastha, Saindhav Koneru, or SaiKo, returns back to crime in order to obtain money for his daughter Gayathri’s spinal muscular atrophy treatment.
The action set pieces make this film slightly watchable. The over-the-top choreography (that ridiculous tooth punch!) can come across as campy, and the cast look great doing these stunts, but the action just feels like style over substance.
Hey, I like violent fight sequences as much as the next guy, but maybe the answer to violent propaganda games isn’t more violence…
