Sikandar Movie Review

It’s been eight years since Bollywood star hero, Salman Khan delivered a unanimous hit film. After, Tiger Zinda Hai, in 2017, none of his films worked at the box office. At a time when he desperately needed a successful movie, he decided to follow the current trend of Hindi actors teaming up with South Indian film directors to score a hit. He teamed up with Tamil star director, AR Murugadoss. The current lucky charm, Rashmika Mandanna, was roped in to do the female lead role. The film was released in theatres today as an Eid special. Did Salman Khan end his eight-year-long flop streak? Did Rashmika Mandanna continue her blockbuster streak? Did AR Murugadoss reinvent himself? Let’s figure it out with a detailed analysis.

What is it about?

Sanjay Rajkot Aka Sikandar (Salman Khan) engages himself in a fight with Arjun Pradhan (Prateik Babbar), the son of a state minister, Pradhan (Sathyaraj). The next day, Pradhan sends inspector Prakash (Kishore) to arrest Sanjay at his residence. Prakash eventually gets to know the following of Sanjay among the people in Rajkot and how Sanjay’s wife, Saisri Rajkot (Rashmika Mandanna), unconditionally supports her husband.

During an attempt to save Sanjay from an attack, Saisri loses her life. Sanjay gets to know that his wife pledged to donate her organs after she passes away. With the help of a doctor, he gets the details of the three people to whom the organs of Saisri were donated and he decides to go and see those three people in person. What challenges Sanjay faced when he went to see the three people? How did Pradhan and his son take revenge on Sanjay? Forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Salman Khan looked disconnected and uninterested throughout the film. His performance in the role of a husband who is dealing with the sudden death of his wife lacks the desired emotional impact. Surprisingly, he was not his usual self even during the action sequences.

Rashmika Mandanna in the role of a queen and a sweet wife, delivered a decent performance but the lack of chemistry between her and Salman Khan was very evident whenever they appeared together on screen. Kajal Agarwal got a role similar to Varsha Bollamma’s role in Vijay and Atlee’s ‘Bigil’ and she did well in her role.

Satyaraj is wasted in a poorly written antagonist role and so is Sharman Joshi in the role of Amar. Prateik Babbar as a spoilt brat son of a minister did an ok job. Jatin Sarna in the role of a Mumbai taxi driver is the only actor in the film who managed to engage the audience well in a couple of sequences with his comedy timing.

Technicalities:

The songs scored by Pritam are forgettable. Not even a single song in the film is catchy and the lack of chemistry between Salman Khan and Rashmika Mandanna made the songs look add onscreen. The background score by Santhosh Narayanan is equally bad. His score did not sync well with the proceedings throughout the film.

Irrespective of the outcome of the films, cinematographer, Thirunavukarasu’s work usually stands out but in Sikandar, even his work is substandard. Editing by Vivek Harshan was all right. There’s nothing he can do with such a badly made film. Production values by NGE Pvt Ltd & Salman Khan Films were all alright.

Positives:

1.⁠ ⁠Mildly Engaging Pre-Interval 15-20 Mins Portions

Negatives:

1.⁠ ⁠Outdated Screenplay
2.⁠ ⁠Bad Direction
3.⁠ ⁠Terrible Performances
4.⁠ ⁠Unnecessary Songs
5.⁠ ⁠Background Score
6.⁠ ⁠Misleading Teaser and Trailer

Analysis:

The basic idea of releasing a teaser and trailer before the release of a film is to let audiences know the content of the film. There is no point in misleading the audience with an action-packed teaser and trailer when the film is a family emotional drama. It is not the first time the director, A. R. Murugadoss, misled the audience with the pre-release promotional material. He did the same in the past with the teaser of his film, Spyder with Mahesh Babu. The entire sequence that was shown in the teaser of Sikandar was not even there in the film.

Sikandar is a proper emotional drama between a loving wife and husband and the challenges the husband faced after his wife passes away. The audience who expected a action drama because of the misinformation provided through the teaser and trailer, finds it difficult to sit through the emotional drama that unfolds on screen. On top of it, the way the drama unfolds on-screen is completely outdated, cliched and gives a sense of Déjà vu feel.

The basic storyline of organ donation and letting your organs live even after you pass away is good but the screenplay that Murugadoss chose to tell the point is routine and bland. He took quite a few sequences from multiple Telugu and Tamil films from the past and rehashed them. Unfortunately, the rehashing misfired bigtime. Sadly for Murugadoss, there was no support either from the technicians or actors to pull off a weak script.

Barring fifteen to twenty minutes of mildly engaging drama before the interval, the film is a bore-fest. There used to be a time when Murugadoss films used to have a lot of detailing and creative thoughts even in the title cards also. It pains to see a creative director of his calibre doing a boring film like, Sikandar. Salman Khan’s stardom may help the film to register decent numbers at the box office for one or two days but it is difficult for the film to sustain thereafter.

Sikandar – Murugadoss’ Weakest Work

Rating – 1.75/5