‘Sikandar Ka Muqaddar’ movie review: Jimmy Shergill is on target in this ho-hum heist flick

After setting the stage for a compelling crime drama thriller, Neeraj Pandey’s ‘Sikandar Ka Muqaddar’ loses pace and purpose

Neeraj Pandey has a knack for plucking stories from crime pages and turning them into dramatic thrillers that carry the flavour of pulp fiction sold on stalls at railway stations. Like his much loved Special 26(2013), Sikandar Ka Muqaddar exudes energy and purpose as it lays out a puzzle for us. The title is inspired by Manmohan Desai’s crime drama Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978). Some of the leaps of faith that Neeraj takes could indeed have piqued the interest of Desai whose cine universe was rooted in Kismat (1968) and Naseeb (1981) but today they come across as nothing more than a well-meant tribute to the master.

A daylight robbery at a grand jewellery exhibition is averted at the last minute because of a timely call from a hassled citizen. But in the melee and police drills that ensue, five red solitaires worth crores go missing.

A hard-nosed police officer Jaswinder Singh (Jimmy Shergill), with an impeccable record in solving such cases, is called in. Driven by intuition, Jaswinder takes three persons into custody. These include senior executive Mangesh Desai (Rajeev Mehta), salesperson Kamini Singh (Tamannaah Bhatia), and AV operator Sikandar Sharma (Avinash Tiwary). Jaswinder feels that Sikandar is the mastermind, but despite applying various tactics, he could not gather any clinching evidence against him. Out on bail, Sikandar is scarred for life because of the social stigma created by the FIR and media reports. Support comes from Kamini, a single mother. The two start a new life but Jaswinder refuses to give up on the case that has shattered his career, reputation, and family life.

Of late, Pandey has developed a fondness for melodrama where the hero endures pain because of a strange twist of fate. He shaped it as a romantic drama Auron Main Kahan Dum Tha and here he imbues similar emotion into the thriller, with varying returns. What could have been an interesting study of how both cat and mouse suffer socially and psychologically while outsmarting each other remains a superficial exercise stretched beyond its potential.

After being off-colour for some time, Jimmy returns to form with a solid performance that lights up the screen. Given a proper character arc and plenty of punch dialogues, he makes us feel for the plight of a police officer driven by instinct and is the reason to keep us away from the remote. Avinash is efficient but a little too sedate and matter-of-fact for the part which makes Tamannaah turn a little over the top in a rare de-glam appearance.

As the red herrings are in short supply, it is not difficult to guess who has executed the heist. The hook is the ‘how’ part but the way the film eschews thrills for drama, the narrative gradually loses its bite. From Agra to Abu Dhabi, when writers (Pandey and Vipul Rawal) start taking generous leaps of fate, they lose grip over the game of cat and mouse. A hastily stitched-together climax eventually leaves one with the feeling of watching one of those episodes of crime shows where the crime is compelling but its dramatisation is ho-hum.

Pandey captures the feeling towards the end, when the divorced wife of Jaswinder, played by Divya Dutta with a faraway look, tells her estranged husband that she always believed in his instinct but that he squandered a lot of life in proving his point.