OW! Whodunits never come better. Neither does the intricate weaving of the tussle of egos and wits into the rollercoaster of a narrative. Most of Neeraj Pandey’s works are brilliant in their understatedness and refinement. Fluid, purposeful storytelling is always backed by plots with few loose strands. Think of Special 26 or A Wednesday or Baby, you know why. In Sikandar Ka Muqaddar he outdoes himself.
It is a heist movie alright, but it goes much beyond where a regular heist movie stops. It’s a non-stop mind game where the lead players – a suspect and cop – are constantly busy outfoxing each other. It could well be chess players at work, each anticipating the moves of the other and each of their manoeuvres is designed to checkmate the other. The missing diamonds from an exhibition is the starting point but it hardly is the core to the plot. It’s something else: egos.
Egos are at work – the policeman who never had his hunch wrong and won’t mind putting his career and personal life in jeopardy to prove his infallibility, and the suspect ready to go to any extreme not to offer him that satisfaction. In every twist and turn in the life of the latter the vanity-driven cop is a shadowy actor. But who’s gaming whom? Let’s leave it at that. We are not giving spoilers. You have to watch the movie to discover the complete picture.
Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is consistent in its tone and texture from the word go, never vacillating from what it sets out to convey. All parts of the jigsaw fall neatly into the right slots as it takes an unpredictable path, as do all the characters. The dramatic tensions get subdued, almost matter-of-fact, treatment at Pandey’s deft hands. The conclusion is open-ended, but the viewer is not left disappointed. The skill in this genre lies in keeping the viewer guessing. This is one movie in a long time where the viewer has little clue on where the plot is headed. The ending leaves them guessing as well.
All credit to director Neeraj Pandey, the co-writer with Vipul K Rawal, and the director of the movie. He keeps it taut, engaging and deliberately slow-paced. Avinash Tiwary is brilliant. Jimmy Shergill, for a change, gets a role he can sink his teeth into, and he does justice to his talent, which usually gets lost in his other movies. The story develops between his smile and smirk, sometimes hardly distinguishable. Tamannaah Bhatia impresses in a non-glamorous role. The talented Divya Datta is underutilised though.
The only complaint about Sikandar Ka Muqaddar can be about its pace. But as mentioned earlier, it’s more than your run-of-the-mill heist movie. The heist is only a prop.
(By arrangements with Perspective Bytes)
