Sikandar Ka Muqaddar (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Three unlikely suspects see their life trajectories change when they become suspects in a diamond robbery.

My Take – Right from his directorial debut, A Wednesday (2008), director, producer and screenwriter Neeraj Pandey has become synonymous for helming and backing high quality thrillers.

With his follow-up ventures like Special 26 (2013) and Baby (2015) only further cementing his status as a modern master of the genre. Only switching gears once to helm the excellent MS Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), the biographical sports drama on former Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

But with the critical and commercial failure of Aiyaary (2018), he shifted his talents towards directing and creating a couple of OTT series, particularly the well-regarded spy franchise Special Ops on Disney+ Hotstar. And though it came as a moment of celebration when he announced his six years long return to feature directorial duties with the love story, Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha (2024), it seemed like the film’s critical and commercial failure maneuvered his original plans towards doing what he does best: directing a gripping heist drama.

But while the thriller starts strong with an intriguing premise, soon enough, the plot torpedoes, loses its pace and purpose midway, and meanders its way to an unsatisfactory climax. Lacking the punch one expects from a Neeraj Pandey film.

Sure, as one would expect, he does handle the film with enough panache to keep viewers intrigued mostly, yet, he is not able to veer us away from the fact that his screenplay, which he co-wrote with Vipul K. Rawal (Mission Raniganj), is entirely predictable and is standing on a wafer-thin plot that ultimately gets bogged down by unnecessary elements and a lack of focus.

What could have been an interesting study of how both cat and mouse suffer socially and psychologically while outsmarting each other ends up becoming a superficial exercise stretched beyond its potential.

Even to the most casual of mystery film lovers, the 143-minute Netflix release is unlikely to deliver any genuine delights. Its narrative arc is wholly in the realms of the expected. The lack of directorial finesse makes it hard to believe this is a film by the same filmmaker who once thrilled us with his tightly crafted narratives.

Opening in 2009 at a jewelry exhibition in Mumbai, which sees an attempted heist plan getting botched due to an incoming tip, allowing the cops to act immediately by raising the necessary alarm and neutralizing the four armed men, but amid the scuffle, diamonds worth ₹50–60 crores go missing.

The story then follows Jaswinder Singh (Jimmy Shergill), a hard-nosed police officer with an impeccable record, who is called in to solve and recover. Driven by intuition, Jaswinder zeroes in on three people: senior executive Mangesh Desai (Rajeev Mehta), salesperson Kamini Singh (Tamannaah Bhatia), and AV operator Sikandar Sharma (Avinash Tiwary). The latter two being the employees of the boutique whose diamonds have been stolen.

While there are three suspects, going by his unfailing instincts, Jasvinder Singh believes that Sikandar is the main perpetrator. But despite applying various tactics, he is not able to gather any clinching evidence against him or the other two. Out on bail, Sikandar is scarred for life because of the social stigma created by the FIR and media reports.

However, both financial and emotional support comes from Kamini, who is also a single mother and caretaker of her younger sister. And soon enough, the two have started a new life, but Jaswinder refuses to give up on the case and immerses himself to the fullest to make Sikandar’s life miserable, a process that sends him down a deep dark hole.

From here on, the narrative slowly loses its grip and spirals into melodrama, switching the genre completely. With no substantial plot progression, the woes of Sikandar keep piling up, drawing out interest from the plot and the runtime becomes a menace. The initial setup is intriguing, with a mysterious heist and a determined cop on the trail of the suspects.

But, the film’s pacing falters as it gets sidetracked by unnecessary subplots and an overabundance of characters. The narrative loses its grip, and the thrill of the supposed chase gets diluted in the process. The film tried hard to deal with the complexities of the psychology of the investigator and the accused and how their lives got intertwined, however, the impact came across as flat.

While it is smartly structured, it needed more of a novelty in the matter of what it crams into its bag of contrived tricks. Like Jaswinder, who brags of his record, the film is far too convinced of its cleverness to be entirely credible. To make matters worse, given the lack of red herrings and powerful twists, the viewers already know who the perpetrator is.

After a point, with the continuously oscillating time frames, one just wants the film to get to the end. The climax too is predictable and underwhelming.

Yes, the missing solitaires do inevitably show up, but neither the diamonds nor the subsequent twists that the stones trigger alter the fortunes of the flagging film. Simply, told the film lacks the footing to be categorized as a gripping whodunit. Performances wise, Jimmy Shergill is impressive and convincing as always. His versatility always keeps him ahead of contemporaries. Jaswinder’s character has two different phases, and he performs both parts so well.

While he has done several roles of such nature, his emulation of the character is still as refreshing. Avinash Tiwary is pretty impressive and continues to flaunt his skill for the craft. Tamannaah Bhatia looks gorgeous as always and is committed to her character throughout. In supporting roles, Rajeev Mehta, Ridhima Pandit, Divya Dutta, and Zoya Afroz make decent impact. On the whole, ‘Sikandar ka Muqaddar‘ is a predictable drama thriller that is neither gripping nor convincing.