Sikandar

Sikandar (Parzan Dastur) is a football crazed schoolboy in Kashmir whose desires revolve around the happiness of his foster parents. One day, on his way home from school Sikandar finds a gun lying on the path. Despite admonishments by his newly made school friend, the 14 year old Nasreen (Ayesha Kapur), Sikandar picks up the gun. Sikandar gets embroiled in situations beyond his control, and people get killed. Are all these mere coincidences or is someone pulling the strings is what the rest of the movie is about.

The scene where the kid plays with the gun with the whole dichhak sounds is good. The story is similar to Tahaan but the screenplay is just horrible. The kid carries the gun in his school bag and brandishes it whenever he is in trouble. 14 year olds think of buying music system and washing machine. Kids get bashed for turning on washing machine and a soldier yells at the kids that their fate will be same as other dead kids. There is even a clichéd mehndi song in the climax.

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At times watching a movie without knowing much about it, serves as a merit. And a project not supported by any great hype can easily surprise the viewer with its novel twists and turns. That’s exactly the case with “Sikander” which manages to impress you with a brilliant start and comes up with an overall above average product based on the burning issue of how children cope up with the tense situation in Kashmir.

The best part of the movie, which stays in your memory, is its opening moments with the deep baritone voice of “Mohit Chauhan” singing these immortal poetic lines of famous Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz :

After this breathtaking start, the story moves into the life of a young boy and girl, who are close friends studying in the same school. Their life goes for a big turn, when once while walking to their school, they find a Gun lying on the ground. The boy decides to pick it up and keeps it in his bag. From there on, he gets caught in the web of local politics and militants working on a big conspiracy. While watching the initial moments, you feel that the movie is made for a cause. But post intermission it starts moving towards a crime thriller genre and loses the realistic feel of the subject. Moreover, there are too many loopholes in the suspense element used towards its lengthy climax.

Parzaan Dastur, playing the title role of Sikander, performs well with an amazing ease and confidence. You can feel the innocence in his acts and facial expressions. Ayesha Kapur, on the other hand tries to deliver an arty performance deliberately. Sanjay Suri, as the politician and Madhavan, as the Army Officer, both deliver controlled and polished acts and impress. However the best show comes from the debutant Arunoday Singh, playing the Kashmiri Militant.

Director, Piyush Jha, comes up with a good project which could have been a much appreciated one, only if he had stuck to his basic theme. Though he started off well with a brilliant sequence but later bowed down to the commercial needs of the market. Kashmir, and its beauty has been captured well by the DOP, showing many spectacular locations on the screen. The Kashmir Militancy problem is also handled in a very impartial manner, where the military and the militants blame each other for the tense situation in the valley.

Piyush, surely seems to be impressed by the masterpieces made by the Iranian director Majid Majidi. A few sequences in the movie really remind you of Majid's great movies based on children and their thinking patterns. Like Majidi, Piyush also successfully maintains the feel of his project by using music and songs intelligently. The songs are not given much footage as per the subject but background music could have been more exciting and energetic.

In the industry where very few projects are made with children as their central characters, “Sikander” is an above average product which could have been much more impressive. In simple words, though it may not have great prospects commercially, but it surely is a sincere effort towards making an Indian Majidi movie.

Rating : 2.5 / 5

Read full review at my blog : CLICK HERE

Story takes place in most recent situations of Kashmir. When situations are not yet properly calm, nor it is so much unbalanced too. Militants and Peace Makers along with Forces, are getting blaming each other, doubting each other and that way keeping the 'peace' out of place. Many stories are told over this theme, so there is hardly anything 'new' left for Piyush Jha the director, to show in this movie.

Similar theme was last seen in the movie Tahaan, where same thing was conceived very beautifully. No doubt I was expecting that kind of excellence in this, i know i was asking for more. Main glitch of the movie is that the story has many loopholes, that beautiful cinematography could not hide. Many things looks typical and unacceptable. Sikandar starts of very well, after striking opening sequence, the innosense of protagonist makes it interesting. But soon, movie lacks its grip. Constantly it flips between story of politician, army and Sikandar. Viewer gets rather confused on such flips. Screenplay doesn't hold you besides having a great potential in the storyline. And reult is besides having a short running time of 110 minutes, one feels the movie a bit long. The suspense part gets revealed quite interestingly though. But the climax is very much typical and viewer already assumes that it is going to end like this only. And still there are questions which left unanswered.

Performances are good though. Madhavan does justice to his rather short role. While Sanjay Suri is really good in this role with art of underplaying. Arunoday Singh as a militant suits his role perfectly. And Parzaan Dastur, the lovely cute Sardar from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, is a grown up boy now. He performs his part quite nicely. Though I couldn't help comparing him to Tahaan's Purab Bhandare. Parzaan maintains his act quite balanced in tricky scenes. My only disappointment is Aayesha Kapoor. The 'Black' girl failed to get my attention. She has accent you can't ignore.And that's why she fails to deliver a performance which might be interesting. I think it was Bhansali who took out the brilliant act from her in Black. Here Aayesha looks lost. And being a most tricky role, hers is quite un-impressive act.

This taut, fast-paced action flick is all about the usual host of issues that leap to mind with Kashmir----violence, jihad, gun raj and the army vs militancy. Yet, ‘Sikandar’ is also about something else that is new and refreshingly different----encroached childhood.

The plot is complicated but racy, with a number of nail-biting twists in the story-line. Sikandar (Parzaan Dastur) is a 14-year-old orphan who one day finds a gun on his way to school. It changes his life forever, and slowly, he begins to use it indiscriminately. Nasreen (Ayesha Kapoor), his teenaged friend, secretly uses him as a pawn to help her father’s jihadi group.

In the battle-ground of violent games among politicians, religious heads, armymen and militants, Sikandar and Nasreen become scapegoats. Finally, both of them realize the folly of violence and return to aman.

The film is built on a great idea, and keeps the narration going at a taut and relentless pace. The switch from one sub-plot to another is not clumsy, and does not interrupt the flow of the screenplay. There are some picture postcard shots of the disturbed Valley, which forms a beautiful, dispassionate framework to the political drama.

The performances keep the movie-interest high. Piyush Jha’s direction and script is crisp. Parzaan Dastur gives a very interesting and convincing portrayal of the confused child who makes a mistake. Ayesha Kapoor, the ‘Black’ girl, is disappointingly wooden and deadpan, and does not seem to suggest any layers of complexity. Madhavan gives a creditable performance. Sanjay Suri as the politician is very pallid and insipid. But the real find is Arunoday Singh. His complex role is brilliantly executed.

Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s background score is very appropriate, but the songs fail to make an impact. The mellifluous language, though, more than makes up!