You know a Salman Khan starrer film is in trouble when its trailer is packed with every single element that makes up a masala potboiler (action, drama, romance, revenge, values, social messaging, dialoguebaazi, dance numbers etc.), but what stays with you is a poorly rendered auto-tuned version of a classic Hindi film song! The makers of Sikandar dropped the film’s much-anticipated trailer on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025 – a week before its theatrical release, and we have quite a few thoughts about it.
The film stars Rashmika Mandanna as the female lead opposite Salman, who, in one scene, can be seen lip-syncing (rather badly) to a version of the cult classic song Lag Ja Gale (originally immortalised in the vocals of the late Lata Mangeshkar). It left us bemused, not because it’s good, but because everything else happening in the three-minute 38-second-long trailer barely makes any sense. There’s little connection between the scenes and shots that appear to have been stitched together haphazardly to create this trailer cut.
Directed by Ghajini (2005, 2008) fame AR Murugadoss, Sikandar stars Salman Khan as the protagonist, who seems to be in a hangover from his previous outings like Jai Ho (2014), and Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023) among others. The abruptly cut and poorly edited trailer just gives you glimpses of Salman doing Salman things on screen. So there’s ample dialogebaazi reminding you of Wanted (2009) and Kick (2014), tackling social issues and a corrupt politician giving a major Jai Ho déjà vu, ailing downtrodden commoners, bad guys being beaten up, coupled with a generous dose of familial relationships taking you on a rather bad nostalgia trip to Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan.
Despite all these elements, and then some, it’s quite astonishing how you barely get to know anything about the film or even be a little intrigued to watch it upon release. If the intention behind this badly cut trailer was to not explicitly reveal the plot/story of the film, then we must commend the makers for succeeding in doing so, at the expense of any sense of coherence. We ended up watching the trailer at least five times (questioning our sense of sanity) in trying to make sense of what we were witnessing before our eyes. There had been some chatter on social media that Sikandar will see Salman’s character avenging the death of his wife/love interest (Rashmika’s character) and there are a couple of hints in the trailer that seem to confirm the hypothesis. But again, this is us, trying to make some sense of this film from its trailer.
To give credit where it’s due, this time one can actually hear Rashmika’s dialogues properly, at least in the trailer. The actress seems to have done a decent job, especially in her individual scenes. However, put her in the same frame as Salman and the scene becomes rather off-putting for some reason. No matter what Salman says regarding the 31-year age gap between him and Rashmika at the trailer launch event, let’s call a spade exactly that here and say that the two of them do not look good together on screen as a romantic couple. There’s zero chemistry between the two with Rashmika passing off as Salman’s younger sister at best. There’s also Kajal Aggarwal in the film and we wonder if the result would have been the same had she been playing Rashmika’s character opposite Salman.
Going by the trailer (and since we’ve watched it quite a few times), some of the action choreography appears innovative, but somehow, Salman seems to lack the conviction to pull it off, making it look quite repetitive. Is it because of his age? His facial expressions (or lack of them)? His response time (which seems to be a bit delayed)? His one-tone delivery of (rather lame) dialogues? Who knows? What also seems evident is that the actor is not invested, or even interested in taking his character seriously enough to sink his teeth and portray it with conviction. It’s almost as if, much like the makers, Salman himself has left the fate of the film in the hands of his fans, who’re desperately waiting for their favourite star to make a massy comeback on the big screen after about 16 months (since Tiger 3 in 2023), with a huge blockbuster, relying solely on their loyalty and his “superstardom” factor. Will Sikandar make it or break it for Salman? We’ll have to wait till March 30, 2025 to find that out.
