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Courtroom dramas are a genre by themselves. Hindi cinema has seen masterful examples like the 1960 Kanoon, the 1969 Ittefaq (albeit based on a foreign stage source), Section 375, Aitraaz (also an adaptation) and more that blended the whodunit (another category by itself) with this genre. On the midstream side, we also had the unforgettable Ek Ruka Hua Faisla (1986).
A slick production and a cerebral script combine to give us a twisted thriller with a rare denouement, raising two questions. One, does the court serve justice or does it pamper the influential? And two, is there a difference between truth and true justice and a court verdict?
Shauryaman Gaur (Akshaye Khanna) has been a lawyer along with Arjun Mehra (Sunny Deol) and Avantika (Dia Mirza). Born arrogant and even sleazy (he is the spoilt son of a businessman-politician as well), he fathers Avantika’s child, but she doughtily refuses to marry him because their goals are way different: and his are all about himself.
Arjun is also responsible for Shauryaman getting disbarred for good for a reason, and then marries Avantika, fully aware of her past and her pregnancy. The couple are happily married, and Arjun considers Samaira as his own child. Professionally, Arjun has never lost a case and is called “Ikka” (Ace of Cards) as he delivers his final ace in court, each time, to win.
Two things happen almost simultaneously. One, Samaira is discovered to have acute leukemia and now needs a stem cell transplant from a biological parent with a perfect match. That match, it is discovered, will come only from Shauryaman and not Avantika. Two, a girl named Soma Mittal (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor) is found bleeding and unconscious on the roadside and was last seen leaving a pub in Shauryaman’s car.
Shauryaman is arrested on circumstantial evidence and his father, Harshvardhan Gaur (Shishir Mishra) wants Arjun to take up the case as he has always represented his company. Arjun refuses as he knows the kind of blackguard Shauryaman is.
But when the stem cell aspect surfaces, Shauryaman tells Arjun that he will save Samaira only if Arjun gets him acquitted. Desperate to save his little girl who adores him, Arjun agrees. The Public Prosecutor is Bengali hausfrau Madhura Banerjee (Tilottama Shome), who is a diffident young lady, also nervous about locking horns with a warhorse like Ikka, despite her determination to get justice for her victim. Soma is in coma and her mother (Jyoti Mukerji) wants Shauryaman punished.
But is Shauryaman really guilty? What happens next in court? And what is the “Ikka” Arjun delivers to acquit Shauryaman and save his child?
Deftly directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra (Hichki, Maharaj), the film is tightly scripted by Althea Kaushal and Mayank Tewari and the courtroom sequences leave an impact by their very sedateness, so to speak. But for very occasional lapses, the sequences are quite lifelike and relatable. The sequences where the public’s mood is witnessed outside the courtroom are also skillfully handled and the friction between Arjun and his client is shown with expected ‘filmi’ expertise. The BGM by Julius Packiam is above-average and complements the film’s needs well.
Though her expressions could have been a shade more mobile, Tillotama Shome succeeds in conveying the inferiority complex she has vis-à-vis a titanic opponent in court and the obstacles she faces. Dia Mirza is overall sincere as Avantika but one feels that she could have been more intense, at least in her expressions. Jyoti Mukerji is very effective as Soma’s grieving mother. Sanjeeda Shaikh (who got a double-bill last week with Dhamaal 4 and this film!) is effective as Shauryaman’s hapless wife. And yet, the best performance among the girls comes from Daria Bedi as Samaira. She is incredibly cute as well as believably real.
Among the men, I loved Vijay Vikram Singh as the humorous yet dedicated judge. Nayan Jadhav as inspector Gokhale is top-class in his brief role. Sunny Deol as Ikka is a shade different from his normal image, akin in a way to his restrained turn in the wonderful yet unsuccessful Ghayal Once Again (2016). Yet there are (many) moments where he could have come out as much more effective rather than a shade stone-faced. However, he scores very high in the emotional sequences with his daughter.
Many a Mumbai hero, especially off-late, has loved to play a baddie in multiple movies: Bobby Deol, Sanjay Dutt and Jackie Shroff among them. But though their performances have ranged from—if I may be blunt!—awful to awesome, they have never been as monotonous as Akshaye Khanna here. I truly cannot fathom the reason for it, because Khanna normally packs a versatile punch from comedy to drama. In this film, he is even more ‘filmi’ than the coterie of our typical villains from the 1970s to the 1980s.
Otherwise, and despite this slip of sorts, I feel that Ikka is one of the few decidedly watchable movies this year.
Rating: ***1/2
Netflix presents Alchemy Films’ Ikka Produced by: Sapna Malhotra & Siddharth P. Malhotra Directed by: Siddharth P. Malhotra Written by: Althea Kaushal & Mayank Tewari Music: Mithoon Starring: Sunny Deol, Akshaye Khanna, Dia Mirza, Tillotama Shome, Daria Bedi, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, Shishir Mishra, Vijay Vikram Singh, Nayan Jadhav & others
