Story:
The year is 2009 when the police get a tip-off about a robbery about to take place at a diamond exhibition in Mumbai. They vacate the premises, nab the robbers, and kill them on the spot. However, five precious red solitaires get stolen amidst the commotion. Investigating Officer Jaswinder Singh (Jimmy Shergill) is tasked with catching the culprits. He rounds up his top three suspects based on his “solid mool vritti (basic instinct)” which include Mangesh Desai (Rajeev Mehta) – an old employee working at the same store for over three decades, his fellow worker Kamini Singh (Tamannaah Bhatia), and Sikandar Sharma (Avinash Tiwary) – a computer techie who’d set up the AVs at the exhibition.
Then begins the cat-and-mouse chase between Jaswinder and his prime suspect – Sikandar. What follows is a tussle of egos and obsession with both relentlessly trying to prove their point. While Jaswinder is unable to accept that his hunch can be wrong (probably for the first time in his life), Sikandar is adamant that Jaswinder look him in the eye like a man and apologise whenever he realises his mistake. Who is the real culprit? How did the solitaires get stolen amidst so many people, without any proof? Who is right and who is wrong? These are some of the questions that the rest of the film attempts to answer.
Review:
Directed by Neeraj Pandey, who’s known to have carved a niche for himself with some brilliantly written and executed heist thrillers and crime dramas like Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), Special Ops (2020), and Khakee: The Bihar Chapter (2022), Sikandar Ka Muqaddar (2024) begins impressively. There’s enough urgency serving just the right kind of build-up for a heist story. The pace, the tension, and the intriguing setup coupled with the introduction of IO Jaswinder Singh – all promise you an exhilarating ride laced with nail-biting moments. However, the tension begins to fizzle somewhere around the middle of the film when it starts oscillating between the present day and flashbacks of the events that transpired back in 2009.
Despite the promising exposition, Neeraj fails to retain the pace and tension to keep you engaged with all your attention on what’s happening onscreen. Even if one were to overlook the obvious loopholes in the plot, it’s the inability of the screenplay, co-written by him and Vipul K Rawal, to maintain its momentum that emerges as the biggest hindrance in delivering a taught heist thriller. The thing with heist movies/shows is, that the viewer wants to know how the theft was planned and executed, in this case, without any trace or proof. The payoff comes when one discovers how the culprit manages to outsmart the others (or not). But by the time the grand reveal happens in Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, the narrative has already been so stretched beyond its capacity that it’s on the verge of falling apart. Thankfully, once you overcome its slacking pace, the movie is quite enjoyable in most parts.
The film definitely has its moments, owing to some cleverly written dialogues and punchlines, mostly attributed to IO Juswinder, who loses both his professional and personal life, owing to his obsession with his mool vritti. Jimmy Shergill brings his A-game in his portrayal of an investigating officer with a cent percent track record. There’s a sense of cool and calm with which he essays Jaswinder Singh. Despite having played several cop characters earlier, Jimmy still manages to make Jaswinder different and brings a certain amount of freshness to his role, and that speaks volumes about his mettle as an actor. From nailing the intensity in his expressions to the diction, stresses, and intonations in his dialogues – Jimmy does everything to deliver a standout performance.
Avinash Tiwary impresses in his character of Sikandar and has you questioning, ‘Did he?’ or ‘Did he not?’ throughout the two hours 22 minutes in the film. He slips into his character with visible ease, making it seem like a cakewalk. Tamannaah Bhatia does a good job in a de-glam avatar as Kamini Singh. Even though she gets comparatively fewer dialogues, she manages to leave a mark and proves that she has more to offer than just being the thing of beauty in dance numbers. Divya Dutta in a special appearance does the needful. What left us a bit disappointed is how the writers completely forgot about Rajeev Mehta’s Mangesh Desai – one of the three suspects in the crime. For the little time that we see him, he does complete justice to his part.
Another aspect that sticks out like a sore thumb is the patchy CGI and visual effects. Although the movie, mostly shot on location, doesn’t rely heavily on them, the VFX seems sub-par wherever used. Arvind Singh’s cinematography is mostly on point, ably bringing the frames to life, especially in the long one-take shots which play a crucial part in heightening the tension in the opening scenes.
Verdict:
Neeraj Pandey’s Sikandar Ka Muqaddar has its moments and delivers in parts. Does it reach the crescendos of his previous work? Well, not quite! Where it falters is in its inability to retain the momentum across its runtime of nearly two and a half hours. However, impeccable performances of the leading cast make up for a lingering screenplay and make the film a fair one-time watch.
Sikandar Ka Muqaddar
Watch On: Netflix
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Writers: Vipul K Rawal, Neeraj Pandey
Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Avinash Tiwary, Tamannaah Bhatia, Rajeev Mehta, Ashrut Jain, Divya Dutta
Rating: 3 stars
