Kannada actor Dhruva Sarja, or ‘Action Prince’ as he is popularly called by his fans in Karnataka, is making a comeback to the big screens with Martin. Dhruva is one of the few actors who has made an undeniable place for himself among the most followed stars of Kannada cinema, even though he has had only four film releases prior to this. Despite being in the film industry for over a decade, his fans have had to wait very patiently every time to see their favourite star on the big screen. Will Martin prove to be worth the wait for the fans? Let’s find out!

Martin was pitched as a high-octane action entertainer, with action set pieces that promise to never be seen before in Indian cinema. The film follows the exploits of Martin and his nemesis, Arjun, who is an IRS officer, as they face off against each other in Pakistan. What happens next? Who is Martin? Who is Arjun? Where are they from? These are some questions that the makers blatantly throw at the audience’s faces right off the bat, and the answers to these make the basic premise of the film.

Dhruva Sarja, who plays the titular character, makes sure that all these questions are force-fed to the audience within the first 20 minutes of the film. A familiar character trait in all of Dhruva’s films has been the loud nature of his character, which is not just restricted to dialogues. With this film we can see him in ‘full volume’ as he portrays two characters – the strict IRS officer Arjun and the maniac villain Martin. While it is to be acknowledged that Dhruva’s screen presence is what has gained him his fan following, even that could not save this film which has been executed in such a poor fashion. Apart from Dhruva, there is neither any scope nor screen-time for any other artist to make an impression.

Here’s the trailer:

To think that veteran actor-director Arjun Sarja would come up with such a paper-thin plot and cook a story out of it with unnecessarily complicated proceedings which from a birds-eye view makes no sense, is truly disappointing.

AP Arjun, who also directed Dhruva’s debut film, Addhuri, is known for making films filled with romance and family drama. With Martin, it became quite evident that he bit off more than he could chew. A film which was supposed to be a stylish action flick looked like a total disaster on screen. It becomes an added responsibility for directors, of having a firm grip over all technical departments, especially with big-budget action films like this, as it won’t take long for this responsibility to turn into a burden. And that seems to have been the case in this instance for the director of Martin. From direction to all other technical departments like VFX, CGI, editing and more, every aspect of Martin was disappointing in massive proportions.

Neither the songs by composer Mani Sharma nor the BGM by Ravi Basrur made an impact in the film. The songs seemed like rip-offs of popular songs, like Dilbar from Satyameva Jayate and OMG Daddy from Allu Arjun’s Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo. Ravi Basrur, who rose to fame with his work on the KGF series and Salaar, could not render the same magic for Martin, as his music was more bass but less substance.

Martin could have been a normal action thriller with a template story, had it not been pumped with so much budget and unnecessary chutzpah. Something that the audience could have had fun with while watching it in a festive mood.

With Dhruva’s KD which is directed by Prem and also stars Sanjay Dutt, Shilpa Shetty, Ravichandran, Ramesh Aravind and others, and is scheduled for a release in late December this year, we can only hope that Dhruva redeems himself and Martin is forgiven and forgotten.

2 out of 5 stars for Martin.