Sikandar Ka Muqaddar Review: The lack of Neeraj Pandey in a Neeraj Pandey film is startling

You can see Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is written with the same pen of predictability and disjointed almost bland gaze like Auron Mein Kaha Dum Tha with its treatment.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar Movie Review

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar Review: Plot - Sikandar (Avinash Tiwary), a software engineer, Kamini (Tamannaah Bhatia), and Mangesh (Rajeev Mehta), two salesmen, are the prime suspects when five solitaires worth Rs 50 crore are stolen from an exhibition where all three of them are present. IO Jaswinder Singh (Jimmy Sheirgill) now has to find out who exactly stole it and can't risk not solving this one because he has a hundred percent track record. But Sikandar, the prime suspect, is proven not guilty, and that doesn't sit right with Jaswinder. What happens next is the film.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar Review: Analysis

The core USP of the stories that come out of Neeraj Pandey's mind is how unpredictable they are. What Naseeruddin Shah would do next in A Wednesday was never something we could predict because even his motive to hold a country hostage wasn't even remotely guessed by us back in the day. Or that big twist in Special 26 that caught us all off guard and was so good that the impact of it somewhere still lingers in your mind. That's the beauty of thriller mysteries—they need to make you go, "Ohhhhhhhhhh." But what if they do not? It becomes nothing less than a lifeless episode of a daily soap opera, which you can predict without even knowing the characters. Definitely something you do not want to happen with Pandey’s cinema. But sad to report, the last two movies have been plagued by it, and we deserve a strong comeback now. 

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, written and directed by Neeraj Pandey with Vipul K. Rawal by his side for the screenplay, is a story about a man being pushed to the margins by life with no hope of bouncing back. The protagonist (if we may call Sikandar that) is interesting from a bird-eye view because imagine someone being stuck in a situation like this and then having to free himself without any resources by his side. But when the camera zooms in, the problem begins. Because there are three main characters whose lives are intertwined in this situation, it is so unlike Neeraj Pandey that he alienates the fourth in the first 15 minutes. Mangesh has so much potential to become one of Pandey’s USP meaty side characters, but surprisingly, he is never given any room too.

And that's exactly what bothers me about this film. The lack of Neeraj Pandey in a Neeraj Pandey film is being witnessed for the second consecutive time after Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, which released this year itself. It almost looks like both stories were written with the same pen, which was so predictable and bland that one would not even associate it with the rest of his filmography. Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is written in broad strokes and without any excitement because you can see the twists coming from afar. For example, the final big twist that is supposed to leave you gasping is actually the most predictable bit about the movie. If you have seen exactly what happens in the first 10 minutes, you know exactly where the solitaires are.

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And this is not the right thing for a Neeraj Pandey film, or for any film that wants to be a thriller. The world-building is equally plain and lifeless in Sikandar Ka Muqaddar because the screenplay is so disjointed that you can see there is no glue between sequences. Things just happen, the story moves forward, and nothing at all elevates the crescendo. For example, Tamannaah Bhatia plays a single mother to a boy and has a sister who looks at least a decade and a half younger than her. We are never clearly told what happened to her husband or how her sister is so young. And what is even more alarming is the fact that none of this major character information has any relevance to the film. Tamannaah could be a woman staying alone, probably an orphan, and the story would have been the same with not even a beat changing.

What is also unclear is the motivation that drives these people. Jimmy Sheirgill is an investigative officer hell-bent on ruining the lives of these three suspects. Now, he has no reason to mess up their lives apart from the fact that they were his first unsolved case. But the plan he lays out is too hard to believe, considering his own life is falling apart all the time. Even the twists, which are probably a little exciting, are plagued by the shadow of predictability that looms over the entire film. Talking more about the film might give away a spoiler or two, but trust me, you will decode it yourself in the first 20 minutes.

Avinash Tiwary continues to act well but in projects that do not cater to his caliber. Tamannaah Bhatia gives a performance that shows a new variation of her mettle, and that is good because we finally see her shed her vanity for a role after a long time and be vulnerable in more than one way on screen. Jimmy Sheirgill is the decoction of every failed cop who seeks revenge because that is the only way one can explain his contribution to this world. Also, who reveals the biggest mystery character in the first thirty minutes after having teased them cleverly in the opening sequence?

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar Review: Final Verdict

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar never rises beyond the obvious because it cannot save itself from being predictable. The lack of Neeraj Pandey in a Neeraj Pandey film is so shocking because the filmmaker has been associated with a brand of good work.

Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is set to hit Netflix on November 29, 2024. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.

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