Sikandar Review..!

‘Sikandar’ is uninspiring for an outdated storytelling, terrible plot developments and unbearable melodrama.

Rating : 1/5

A R Murugadoss, who was once the most sought out story teller with the right mix of commercial aspects and emotions in his films, has been missing his mark lately. Sikandar is yet another addition to the worst of his films with an outdated story idea and uninspiring execution. It gets evident with an unambitious opening scene. Salman Khan, who could generate mass frenzy with his screen presence, looks least bothered in the action sequence. The whole setup looked so immature and it seemed like the makers have completely lost the idea of introducing a big hero. This was supposed to build and establish a strong antagonistic conflict but no effort was taken here and ultimately becomes a laughable scene.

The film shifts to the main story explaining about the title of the film, ‘Sikandar’ and the worst part is the protagonist’s story fail to bring any emotional connection with the audience. These episodes are crammed with over the top and unnecessary sequences, which we have seen atleast 15 years ago. The screenplay follows numerous events that remained less connected to each other, which makes the audience look away from the central plot, if there was one. The intention was there but the writing and execution are uncreative and on top of that, Rashmika’s character was given the hype but ends up as a joke. There is a sub plot that leads to an important event in the main story, which hardly gives an impact or a purpose to the main character. The emotions seemed lifeless for a major part and it is hard to connect due to the unexplained character arcs or disconnected events. Everything felt forced and far-fetched.

The film takes a completely different route after 45 minutes and these episodes get even terrible with lame jokes and flat screenplay. It felt like the director failed to blend the core emotions and commercial elements. There are so many scenes that is high on melodrama and it gets too strenuous for the audience to digest. Another disappointing feature about the film was that the misogynistic remarks deserved belt treatment rather than being preachy. The issue was that such characters were seen before in several films such characters needed strong criticism. But the approach of ‘correcting alpha male characters’ has become so repetitive and melodramatic, which is sort of a speed breaker to the pacing of the film.

Since the lead character comes from a royal family, there is a slight glorification of the monarchy, especially when the main antagonist is a politician. These episodes is the actual essence of the film but fails to convince the viewers and there is a lack of genuine emotions most of the time. When it comes to the conflict, it never raises tension between the protagonist and antagonist. They are weakly written and there is hardly anything to root for the protagonist on that front. Besides that, the hero never really was challenged by the villain.

The action set pieces and build up to these scenes weren’t great either. These action blocks were more like, designed to portray the mass hero image of the actor. It never felt like they have taken true effort to elevate the sequence and justify the screen presence of the powerhouse actor. It is well known that Salman can nail those portions with so much grace, but off late, he has put little effort on fight sequences. His energy and swag were better than his recent releases, but still a shadow of his former self. Rashmika was wasted without adding any emotional value, though her character arc was supposed to drive the story forward. Prathik’s character seemed like a rehash of his character in ‘Darbar’. Similarly, every other artist couldn’t give any notable performance. The real villain of the film is the outdated screenplay and amateurish execution of AR Murugadoss. To sum it up, Sikandar is not even an original Bollywood film, but a formulaic South film that fails to generate any thrills or emotions.