Neeraj Pandey has been a really busy man ever since he made his directorial debut with 2008 thriller film, A Wednesday. His sophomore feature, Special 26, was excellent. And with the exception of the M.S. Dhoni biopic, he’s dedicated his career to showing that he is a big fan of the Indian armed forces. But with each of those projects, whether it be on the big screen or the small one, Pandey kept straying from the basics of filmmaking and storytelling in his pursuit of the most realistic portrayal of chest-thumping nationalism. When he released an out-and-out romantic film, featuring stars like Ajay Devgn, Tabu, and Jimmy Sheirgill, I walked into it with tepid interest, only to have one of the most painful viewing experiences of all time. That’s why my expectations for Sikandar Ka Muqaddar were subterranean. To be honest, with the premise that he had, he could’ve cleared the incredibly low bar he had set for himself. However, his worst tendencies as a storyteller and a filmmaker kept him from doing so.
Neeraj Pandey’s Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, which he has co-written with Vipul K. Rawal, kicks things off with a botched robbery attempt at a diamond exhibition convention. Even though the assailants are killed, Mangesh Desai and Kamini Singh raise the alarm because the most expensive solitaires that they had put on display are missing. Inspector Jaswinder Singh is brought to the scene of the crime, and after some light investigation, he comes to the conclusion that his top 3 suspects are Mangesh, Kamini, and an audio video technician, Sikandar Sharma. Even though all 3 of them say that they’re innocent, Jaswinder subjects them to all kinds of harassment to get them to spill the truth. During this ordeal, Sikandar requests Jaswinder be ready with his in-person apology when he finds out that his hunch is wrong. 15 years go by and Jaswinder is out of a job due to his day drinking, and his wife, Kaushalya, has divorced him too. With nothing else to look forward to, he arranges a meeting with Sikandar (who has married Kamini and secured a job in Dubai) to apologize for making him go through hell. Although it seems like this conversation is going to go in a predictable direction, it takes a few interesting twists and turns.
The best way to describe the script of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is by citing that Reverse-Flash meme birthed by Flashpoint Paradox. It’s not based on a real scene, but for some reason, people have taken that bit from the DC film and turned Reverse-Flash into the orchestrator of every intimate moment in Barry Allen’s life (and by “intimate,” I do mean every incredibly intimate moment). And that’s exactly what Pandey and Rawal did with Jaswinder and Sikandar during the third act of their movie. I don’t think it was supposed to be hilarious but the ridiculousness of their dynamic elicited quite a few laughs out of me. All jokes aside though, I think there was a good idea, somewhere in the screenplay, about two self-destructive, narcissistic, and incredibly patient men ruining each other’s lives as well as their own in the pursuit of their personal “gotcha!” moment. On paper, Pandey and Rawal spent a lot of time on how these two persevered in their own ways by showing every miniscule instance of them toying with the truth. But the issue was that these supposed character-building or character-breaking incidents were just too cliche and tepid, and the dialogue-writing was too wooden, thereby robbing the final revelation of its punch.
Coming back to the Eobard Thawne meme, there’s a sense of irony to the jokes centered around Reverse-Flash, because even someone as evil as him couldn’t have had the foresight to do all the things that the internet claims he is capable of. But Neeraj Pandey and his warring duo have no sense of irony, thereby making them feel like a joke. Every caper film has a solid setup so that the payoff can be satisfying. Neeraj Pandey leaves the setup out of sight and when he has to deliver the payoff, he repeatedly points at the setup that was just beyond the frame until you realize that the act of seriously overexplaining the setup is the real payoff. And he does all of this with such an oversmart attitude that it’s truly amusing. While he is feeling very smug about pulling a fast one on the audience, he hilariously loses all sense of believability. In A Wednesday, he at least put some effort into showing how a common person can pull off an anti-terrorist operation. The mastermind of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar just happens to be an uber-genius thief who faces nary a hiccup while stealing diamonds right in front of the police? How? I don’t think even Pandey has the answer to that because he’s too busy convincing himself that he has tricked the audience so hard.
Sikandar Ka Muqaddar has long takes and Steadicam shots. Does Pandey achieve anything, in terms of visual storytelling, with that? As far as I could decipher, no, he doesn’t. I mean, instead of whipping the camera around like a madman, he could’ve used the frame to create the building blocks of the final twist. But I guess, Pandey thinks that that’s too basic of a technique to use in his great movie. The lighting is really inconsistent. There are moments where his shots have natural lighting, and it looks decent. The cliffhanger scene, which takes place at a literal cliff, seems gorgeous (that’s the 2nd time this year that Jimmy Shergill has found himself on a cliff facing a trickster). However, the conversation-heavy indoor scenes look like they have been lit, edited, and scored by people from the crew of one of Ekta Kapoor’s soap operas. I think the words I’m looking for are “tacky” and “cheap.” On top of all that, the acting is extremely bad. I don’t think that’s entirely the actors’ fault. Jimmy Shergill, Avinash Tiwary and Tamannaah Bhatia are extremely talented. But how are they supposed to flex their acting chops if they are asked to deliver their lines in the most awkward fashion imaginable or pretend like they’re in a Manmohan Desai film? They try their best, but the ultimate result is forgettable. The supporting cast is treated like a joke. They could’ve been replaced by cardboard cutouts and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Credit where credit is due, I think the opening 20 minutes and the closing 20 minutes of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar are competent. Additionally, the central idea that men will waste 15 years of their life to one-up each other instead of going to therapy is a decent commentary on masculinity. Well, that leaves you with 103 minutes of the most boring, uninteresting, and overconfident storytelling. Now, I am not generous enough to ignore a major chunk of the film’s flaws, appreciate the handful of good stuff that it has, and recommend everyone to give it a watch; I just can’t. But if you’re not like me, please, go ahead and watch Neeraj Pandey’s latest slogfest. I mean, at least it’s better than Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha and didn’t have me chucking expletives at my screen throughout its runtime. It’s way better than all of Pandey’s ultranationalist nonsense. And between Special 26 and this film, it’s clear that this is the genre where he is sort of at his best. He just needs a better screenwriter and his filmmaking basics in order before sitting in the director’s chair again.
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