Bollywood movie review: Sikandar

Genre: Action

Starring: Salman Khan, Rashmika Mandanna, Sunil Shetty, Kajal Aggarwal

Release date: March 30, 2025

Rating: ****

‘Bahut saare log mere peeche padhe hai… Bas, mere muddne ki der hai!’ (Scores of people have been chasing me… It just requires me to turn around!) That’s one of the catch-lines delivered with the most-recognisable troubled baritone of Salman Khan, in the dark, sketchy, official trailer of Sajid Nadiadwala’s Sikandar that promises a good measure of deadly action but no giveaways whatsoever about the storyline.

But, if you are a die-hard ‘Sallu’ fan who frequents the cinema near you at his every single release, you are expecting him to serve out his usual fare, year after year, decade after decade, with the audience (who make the cash registers ring like never before with every subsequent release) never getting satiated with his time-tested formula.

The screen will come alive with multi-coloured dance sequences in broad day light (Sanjay Leela Bhansali can go take a walk, with his dull beige ambience featuring 500 plus dancers, dubbed as ‘artistic’), foot tapping signature dance moves, a few emotional scenes that tug at one’s heart strings, loads of action where the hero is absolved of all his brutal sprees, and an inexplicable end that the audience is compelled to condone as the screen instantly lights up with a sign-off dance number that makes you forget the fracas and float out of the cinema with a big smile.

Sikandar is, thus, the umpteenth story of the typical ‘angry young man’ (young!) who confronts a powerful network of corruption, challenges the status quo, and launches himself headlong in a fight for the common man’s rights in a nation gripped by injustice. Have you not heard that before? And yet, you are deciding to visit a suitable screening after the film is released on Sunday (March 30)!

Directed by A R Murugadoss, an acclaimed director in the Tamil film industry known for his treatment of action films on social themes, the film stars Salman Khan in the titular role, alongside Rashmika Mandanna who Salman himself takes delight in announcing with a pinch of salt that she is 31 years younger to him yet plays the leading lady.

The film has been on the anvil since April 2024 and shooting/photography wrapped up as late as March 2025. It had filming schedules in Portugal and other European countries which, however, got delayed due to Murugadoss’ other commitments, besides security concerns after Salman received certain death threats last year.

Besides the regular melodrama, which can be tied together even by a three-year-old, the take home for viewers is not any message of righteousness (we all know how to identify the good, bad and ugly very well), rather the fanfare surrounding the song sequences and the theme sentence of the story, delivered by Sikandar himself – ‘Nobody is above the law’.

As for Rashmika’s presence, she’s the latest southern siren whose presence in most Bollywood flicks is simply to appease audiences in the south and ensure good business there. If she simply smiled and lit up the screen in Maddock Films’ Chaava, she does quite the same in Sikandar with her giggles and one-liners like, ‘Log tumko alag, alag naam se pukarte hai…koi Rajasahab, koi Sanjaysahab, koi Sikandarsahab…but I like Sanjay, haan,’ and an uncalled for sequence of romancing Sikandar by humming a verse from late Lata’s eternal ‘Lag ja gale…’

With an estimated production budget of ₹200 crore (said to be one of the most expensive Indian films of all time), the film has peppy songs composed by Pritam. Guys, don’t head to the loo during the Qawwali (Zohra Zabeen) or the Holi-theme (Bam Bam Bhole) numbers. And, of course, Sikandar Naache, which is the only sequence you remember despite a haggle with your auto-driver back home.

Sikandar also has commendable action sequences, involving a train and scores of extras, filmed on elaborate sets recreating Mumbai suburban railway stations like Borivali, besides other action sequences shot with an aircraft, trains, and sets resembling a prison and a hospital, all peppered with Sallu’s monotonous dialogue delivery intended to project him as the ultimate social saviour.

You didn’t really need this review, did you? You are anyway going to enter the cinema house for a larger than life experience during the Eid break. After all, who puts off a Salman Eid release for a ‘dekho’ on the small screen weeks later, unless you have arthritis. Get going!

(Rating: Four stars)