Sikandar Ka Muqaddar: Oops, He Did It Again

AT THIS POINT, I am certain that Neeraj Pandey is laughing at our expense. The statement might be severe but hear me out. This year in August he helmed Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha, an agonisingly dull film that made the coming together of two fine actors, Ajay Devgn and Tabu, part of the problem. Barely three months later, he has made Sikandar ka Muqaddar that unravels as a spiritual sequel in tediousness, has credits designed in Comic Sans typeface and would have been considered a joke if the actors did not trudge along with the straightest of faces. All three of them brave the insane plot twists like their life depended upon them. Oh have I said too much? Oops — not my but Pandey’s word.

The year is 2024 and it appears that we have reached some worrying level of intimacy with filmmakers for them to keep throwing words like “oops” on screen not once but twice. Or we have ushered in a post post modernist phase where anything and everything goes, a little like the duct-taped banana artwork. The reason is still unclear but Pandey’s unearned cheekiness is not. With 30 minutes left to Sikandar ka Muqaddar, the screen goes dark and “The End” credits flash before our eyes. You heave a sigh of relief and then comes the catch: “Oops”. And then the drudgery starts again while dialling up the outlandishness. The screen turns black again and again comes the four letter word: Oops.

The reason I am going on about this is because it really is incredulous. The first time it happened, I could not believe it (“Is it a joke?”) and then it happened again and I finally made peace with the implication: We are the joke. Honestly if Sikandar ka Muqaddar was an emotion, it would be termed “oops”, if it was a person it would be called “oops”, but since it is a film, the comparison becomes easier to make. Every frame looks like a mistake and should apologise for existing. Or, in Pandey’s words, should just say, “Oops”.

Now that this is out of my system, we can get to other things. But there is really little else to say. Sikandar ka Muqaddar continues Pandey’s attempt at telling something heartfelt wrapped in layers of excess. He did that in Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha and in many ways the design is familiar. There are timeline jumps, there is an instance of an incident in the past haunting the characters and there is a distinct scene of two men sitting across each other and confessing things over a drink. The only common face here is Jimmy Shergill. The actor retains his smirk (becoming quite a trademark) and spends most of his screen time drinking straight from the bottle. Maybe he had already seen the rushes.

Sikandar ka Muqaddar opens on February 15, 2009. A massive diamond exhibition is slated to take place and the security is tight. But soon, the cops get a tip that there might be a burglary. Prompt action is launched, the space is evacuated and the forces are neutralised. But when normalcy sets in, something looks amiss. A couple of solitaires (worth multiple crores) have gone missing. An investigating officer with a near-perfect track record is summoned, Jaswinder Singh (Shergill) and he puts his bet on three people: the two people in charge of the stall, Kamini Singh (Tamannaah Bhatia) and Mangesh Desai (Rajeev Mehta), and a techie who looked in a bit of a hurry: Sikander Sharma (Avinash Tiwary). Thus spawns a decade-spanning cat and mouse game.

The premise is hardly complicated. A cop gets so subsumed in a case he can’t crack that it upends his personal life and consumes him completely. When the story takes a 15-year leap, Jaswinder Singh is a shell of a man. He gets fired and divorced on the same day. All three accused had moved on but he refused to and continued keeping tabs on them. In recent memory, Haseen Dillruba used the setting to smart effect, outlining a wounded love story at the center. But Sikandar ka Muqaddar unfolds as Do Patti instead, which is not good news.

Pandey tries so little in all quarters that it is bizarre that at no point did Netflix, the streamer on which the film is playing currently, decide to pull the plug on it. Make no mistake, Pandey has made a thriller here but the design of it is so rudimentary, it could be distilled as the famous meme where three Spider-Men are accusing each other of being impostors

At every point in Sikandar ka Muqaddar, each character (Sikander and Kamini fall in love while going to court every day) is busy outwitting the other. Which, in turn, implies Pandey (also the writer) is trying to outwit us. The intent is strong and the desire is deep. Things go a certain way and then comes a twist. You recover and settle down and something bonkers happens and then something else. One “oops” and four plot twists later, it is difficult to keep taking the film seriously. It also says something that while Shergill’s Akshaye Khanna-coded performance grows on you, Tiwary comes across as a much lesser actor. It is unfortunate since with the re-release of Laila Majnu (2018) this year, there was fresh evidence of his capabilities.

But Sikandar ka Muqaddar hardly cares. It takes a while but the film ends up pulling everyone down. It starts with the actors and then comes gunning for our expectations. If Pandey is listening, I have one suggestion: instead of concluding, preface the narrative with “oops”. Let that be a warning that this is a poor excuse of a film.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.