Eight years is a l-o-o-ng time! Salman Khan was really seen in his element last in the 2017 Tiger Zinda Hai, which now seems like eons ago. Even Tiger 3 last year was never in the league of Salman’s terrific mass acts like that film, or Sultan, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Kick and even his weakest post-2010 success, Jai Ho!.
To say that Sikandar makes a better offering here than Antim: The Final Truth, Race 3, Tubelightor Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan, is no consolation. In the times we are in, it is one huge anticlimax for a Salman-Eid potential blockbuster! And it is high(est) time that Salman really, really introspected and did a reinvention of his film advisory committee, whoever they are. Come on man, we are in 2025!
And one more crucial things: social messages should preferably be subtle, and eminently hard-hitting, like in a Sultan and a Good Newzz. We don’t want these messages clumsily rammed down our systems and mixed until they are messy—organ donation, pollution, the criminal-corrupt cops nexus, the rights of educated women to work rather than be thrown into mere domesticity, the rights of a porn star to have a family, the need to give a spouse time along with your social responsibilities…!
I could not, in fact, help thinking that with the economic resources splurged into this cinematic excess could have been far better used to help the very poor people this film champions, who live in squalor and amidst man-made chemical and atmospheric pollution.
As a die-hard optimist, I have great hopes from Salman. All he needs is a tailor-made setup like Pathaan that revived Shah Rukh Khan, or The Diplomat that can assure fans that a film matters more than the actor with John Abraham. Aamir Khan (Thugs of Hindostan, Laal Singh Chaddha), Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn too have often gone wrong, but they can always return to form.
Salman was very likeable in his only recent non-action film, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo. Maybe he should skip the action genre for a while, and certainly avoid the brazen social messaging.
Sikandar here is the ‘Raja Saheb’ (unofficial ‘king’!) of Rajkot where the prajaa (subjects) love him for whatever he has done and is doing for them. He is happily married to SaiSri (Rashmika Mandanna) who loves him even though he has no time to spend with her, see her lovingly made painting or even know that she is pregnant!
At the drop of a hat, Sikandar can arrange a van full of cash or the medical treatment of 6000 affected people (they cannot be accommodated at one time in Mumbai’s hospitals)! He can organize blasts, call medical specialists from across the world and get ‘confidential’ reports on organ donations that later seem to be common news anyway.
Sikandar makes enemies right and left as he hates those who do wrong, and that includes corrupt cops. He first beats up a pervert (Prateik Babbar), who tries to sexually harass his in-flight passenger, and earns the unending ire of that man’s ruthlessly evil politician father (Sathyaraj). He incurs the wrath of a police officer (Kishore) from Haryana, who is also after him and in cahoots with the politician.
He also antagonizes a land-grabbing tycoon and even advises an orthodox South Indian old man who is chauvinistic and has outdated and regressive mores regarding women working. His cohorts who always accompany him usually let him fight dozens of men alone. “Do sau ho ya paanch sau. Mere aane tak unhein rok-ke rakhna Whether there are 200 or 500 people out to get us, just hold them till I reach there)!” he advises them.
In a stylish but bizarre sequence, his wife comes to know that there is danger to him, does not reveal it, and pretends to be asleep as he tackles multiple goons single-handedly on the road.
And the core is: Sikandar wants a certain late organ donor’s three recipients (of lungs, eyes and heart respectively) to be in the pink of health and the politician wants them all dead as his errant son, who was chasing Sikandar, had died in an accident and his revenge must be enforced.
You get the gist by now…!
There is literally no redeeming feature other than the dubious shortening of the film by 15 minutes that the filmmakers themselves did. Pritam’s and JAM8’s music include transiently catchy songs like Sikandar naache, Bam bam bhole and Zohra jabeen, in all of which lyricist Sameer (back with Pritam after over a decade’s break—literally!) tries to write in a mix of his style and the contemporary.
The background music is noisily overdone and thus noisome, while the technical gimmickry and (unreal) stylized action gets tiring soon.
Salman Khan himself seems indifferent in both performance and dance, low on energy and vitality and high on tropes. Rashmika Mandanna again gets a sketchy role after Chhaava. Kajal Aggarwal, Prateik Babbar and Anjini Dhawan get no mileage, Sharman Joshi is miscast in a role that could have been done by a supporting actor and Sanjay Kapoor barely registers (the two were far better used in Mission Mangal). Sathyaraj, poor man, is made to ham.
But the film has no meat at all.
Rating: *1/2
Salman Khan Productions’ & Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment’s Sikandar Produced by: Sajid Nadiadwala Directed by: A.R. Murugadoss Written by: A.R. Murugadoss, Rajat Arora, Hussain Dalal & Abbas Dalal Music: Pritam & JAM8 Starring: Salman Khan, Rashmika Mandanna, Sharman Joshi, Kajal Aggarwal, Anjini Dhawan, Sathyaraj, Sanjay Kapoor, Kishore, Jatin Sarna, Nawab Shah, Vishal Vashishtha, Kishori Shahane, Sulabha Arya, Dhanya Balakrishna, Vijayant Kohli, Chaitannya Choudhry, Neha Iyer & others
(Used with permission from NIT)
