Sikandar Ka Muqaddar offers a gripping storyline featuring Avinash Tiwary and Tamannaah Bhatia. While the film starts strong, it loses momentum midway.

Neeraj Pandey knows his audience. He likes to keep them guessing in his thrillers- from Baby (2015), to Special 26 (2013). His last theatrical release Auron Kein Kahaan Dum Tha, took it a notch higher— by making you guess what happened to the filmmaker who could otherwise weave an engaging story. An excruciatingly slow watch, it suffered from an identity crisis: was it a romantic drama, or a thriller, or a daily soap parading around as a film? Thankfully, Pandey is back to what he does best, with Sikandar Ka Muqaddar.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar: The plot

The film stars Avinash Tiwary as the protagonist Sikandar, Tamannaah Bhatia as his wife Kamini and Jimmy Shergill as cop Jaswinder Singh. The story: some diamonds are stolen from a jewellery exhibition, where Sikandar, Kamini and Mangesh Desai (played by Rajeev Mehta) are held as prime suspects by Jaswinder. Sikandar’s entire life is turned upside down, despite not being proven guilty. He marries Kamini, a single mother and she falls sick one day. He is even expelled from jobs. Basically, his ‘muqaddar’ is a character in itself here. He had promised Jaswinder that he will apologise one day, for not trusting his innocence. And after 15 years, Sikandar does get a call from him. What happens next is the rest of the plot.

The film begins on an urgent note. You are sucked into the world Panday creates (also the writer), and really want to know who stole the diamonds. He knows just how much information he needs to give to the viewers at a given point, to leave them intrigued. It works.

And it fell apart

But somewhere around the halfway point, the film’s tone suddenly changes, and things slow down. From being a thriller about who executed the robbery, the focus completely shifts to Sikandar’s woes. This might not go down well with some viewers, purely because things started on a pacy note. Also, the filmmaker in Neeraj, who has made projects for theatres until now, can’t resist adding a romantic song. Just for the sake of it. It’s things like these which keep Sikandar Ka Muqaddar from being a true-blue thriller. The big twist is…not as big as you would imagine. It takes time to arrive there, and isn’t as exciting as the build up.

A common problem shared by his last film Auron Mein Kahaan… and this one is— Neeraj doesn’t know where to end his film. He keeps adding so much that it takes a lot of time to tie the loose ends eventually.

Avinash tries hard to bring Sikandar to life, and he nearly succeeds. The story is riding on the Tom and Jerry equation between him and Jimmy, and he rises to the occasion. Shergill does what he does best: it’s interesting how the man has managed to create a space for himself even with multiple cop/ gangster roles till date. Tamannaah lends good support to the story.

Overall, Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, is a decent thriller. I like the wordplay in the title, which you eventually realise subverts Muqaddar ka Sikandar. If only Neeraj had resisted burdening the film with a lot of things. It streams on Netflix from November 29.

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