Salman Khan has the swag, the screen presence and the ability to own action scenes. He can appear emotionally vulnerable too. These cover up his serious limitations as an actor. The job of a competent director is to package it all with an engaging plot. AR Murugadoss fails to connect his star value to a coherent story. They stand apart. That’s where Sikandar falters and falls.
Salman, whose box office charisma is on the wane, should have reinvented himself years ago with a better choice of movies and directors. He has been repeating himself for so long that the point needs no overemphasising. While the other Khans, Aamir and Shah Rukh, have shown willingness to accept new challenges, Salman refuses to move out of his comfort zone. Sikandar, the way it plays out, caters to his comfort zone. This time, his character Sanjay Rajkot is a large-hearted royal who flexes his muscles for the right cause. He is out to find the recipients of the organs his wife, Saisri (Rashmika Mandanna}, donated and is drawn into a bloody conflict with a minister.
Yaaawn! How predictable! You don’t expect anything cerebral from Salman, but he can surely be less lazy about finding more interesting scripts. That’s the most important part of the reinvention of an actor. Shah Rukh shifted from romance to action with Pathaan and Jawan, Aamir has always been brilliant with his choice of stories. Only Salman remains rooted in a tired template.
The trend in recent years, as evident in the success of pan-Indian movies from the South, is to blend action with a good plotline, the latter being the priority. Both Murugadoss and Salman appear oblivious to it. Well-connected plot points, pacing, dramatic tension and well-rounded characters keep the viewers invested. They would suspend logic and disbelief if the overall narrative engages them with these. In Salman’s Sultan, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and even Tiger 3 – his more watchable movies in the last decade – they came together well. Not so in Sikander. If it’s rejected by the audience, it’s not difficult to fathom why.
Murugadoss is certainly much better than this. The maker of Ghajini, Holiday – A Soldier Is Never Off Duty, Akira and several Tamil hits has an impressive filmography to his credit. It’s possible he allowed Salman’s star appeal to dictate his storytelling style. A loophole-ridden plot made it worse. Sikandar is a disjointed work trying to burnish its moral appeal with messaging on social issues. It fails. The lack of sincerity is too obvious.
Actors such as Sathyaraj, Pratiek Babbar and Sharman Joshi are capable of so much more! If only the script had allowed their characters more layers!
(By arrangement with Perspective Bytes)
