Sikandar (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – A fiery man confronts a powerful network of corruption, challenging the status quo and fighting for the common people’s rights in a nation gripped by injustice.

My Take – By now we all know that a Salman Khan starrer is a genre in itself, and know what to expect. From gravity-defying action, larger-than-life heroism, and punchy dialogues to Salman‘s presence as the expected righteous, brave, and invincible figure have become typical of this Eid releases which promise nothing but popcorn entertainment.

Unfortunately, like his last few releases, this one too falls considerably short of expectations. Written and directed by A.R. Murugadoss, the action drama has Salman Khan drive the narrative with his signature star power, but the underwhelming plot, cringe performances and clichéd narrative does the film no favors.

Though the 59 year old superstar still owns action scenes like a boss, his latest offers no reinvention and works like just another blatant attempt at whitewashing his troubled persona by wrapping it all in a crowd-pleasing, morally upright superhero package.

The constant need to position him as all-knowing, all-feeling, all-conquering has become not just repetitive, but also quite exhausting. It is also unclear what convinced the remaining cast & crew to take on this project, as it does the minimum to draw in even the die-hard fan.

The story follows Sanjay Rajkot (Salman Khan), a.k.a Sikandar, a Gujarati royal with a heart of gold. Though his do-gooder ways often finds him in trouble, his wife, Saishri (Rashmika Mandanna), whole-heartedly backs him and does her part of protecting from the various dangers he faces. But when one of his such escapades leads to Saisri’s demise, Sanjay is left heart broken.

Hoping to find some peace for himself, Sanjay decides to head to Mumbai, along with his aides including Amar (Sharman Joshi), to meet the three individuals to whom his beloved wife’s organs were donated.

Meanwhile, in a ruthless attempt to erase her memory and break Sanjay’s spirit, a powerful and corrupt minister, Rakesh Pradhan (Sathyaraj), who was still angered by Sanjay’s violent handling of his spoilt son, Arjun (Prateik Babbar), during a flight, decides to target these recipients. From here on, Sanjay begins his new journey of protecting them from harm while helping transform their lives.

Here, writer-director A.R. Murugadoss, known for helming blockbusters like Ghajini (2008) and Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty (2014), offers an outdated and uninspiring narrative. His direction simply lacks the energy needed to keep the viewers engaged for 135 minutes. He doesn’t even try to reinvent the formula and lazily leans on tropes we’ve watched being recycled over the years.

There’s the textbook scene of a woman being harassed by a powerful minister’s brat on a plane, only for Sanjay to swoop in with a well-placed punch and a speech on decency. Then we meet the grumpy patriarch, an ageing grandfather from the South, who refuses to let his daughter-in-law work. But by the third act, he’s pledging his house to support her business dreams, thoroughly reformed by Sanjay’s saintly intervention.

Everything here is structured as a dumbed-down version of the quintessential masala potboiler. Filled with bumper sticker messaging, the lessons on organ donation and environmental and moral pollution, his writing is just contrived. There is also a comment against the alpha male as well, but all of it is delivered in such a heavy-handed manner with little cohesion, that it makes it increasingly difficult to engage with the plight of the performers.

It doesn’t help that the screenplay is dull and filled with disconnected scenes that disrupt the flow. For instance, an irrelevant song suddenly appears at the beginning, adding nothing to the narrative. Several such moments make the film feel scattered and disjointed. Even action sequences offer little novelty. The third act and climax are overly dramatic and have illogical sequences that further weaken the film’s impact.

Performance wise, Salman Khan drives the film with his signature star power. He strives to deliver an emotional, turn, but the sluggish narrative holds him back, with some over-the-top dialogues thrown in for good measure. Every frame is carefully designed to showcase him as a glorious, larger-than-life emperor with slow-motion entries, dramatic lighting, and thunderous background scores all working overtime to elevate his presence. Making the narrative play out less like a film and more like an elaborate homage to the man himself.

Rashmika Mandanna has a strong screen presence but doesn’t have much to perform or elevate the scenes she appears in. Sathyaraj and Prateik Babbar are over the top as the antagonists. In supporting roles, Vatsan Chakravarthi, Sanjay Kapoor, Anjini Dhawan, and Kajal Aggarwal are decent.

However, the biggest surprise element is Sharman Joshi. It’s disheartening to see a talented actor like him reduced to playing Salman‘s butler of sorts. A superb performer who barely gets to do anything on-screen. On the whole, ‘Sikandar‘ is yet another disappointing and exhausting outing that feels more like a bloated tribute to Salman Khan.