“He's not a man of business deals and offers; he's a simple guy. If you can find a way through to his heart, he might even climb up the Himalayas for you”, says Sultan Ali Khan's friend to Amit Sadh, who's a headhunter of sorts trying to bring back to the rings of Pro Take Down, the yesteryear world champion wrestler. It's crucial when you define the central protagonist of the film; s/he will have to live up to the description. And that's where the movie scores big time.
The film starts off with the usual sports rhetoric of “we've to find a way to keep the sport alive” setting us off on the trail of finding the hero. We meet the man, Sultan (Salman Khan) in Haryana, who could be destined to put the game of wrestling under the spotlight, but has given up on the game. Rotate the reel back a little into his past, and we meet Arafa (Anushka Sharma), the love of his life-turned-wrestling motivator.
We plunge into the bygone (about 8 years) fully aware of what we might find there. Aimless guy becomes a wrestler to woo the girl wrestler whose dream is to win the Olympics gold medal. And both of them continue their winning spree from Commonwealth Games to Asian Games, but a few steps short of the Olympics selections, the beautiful picture starts to smudge. When Sultan reaches the pinnacle and is crowned World Wrestling Champion at Olympics, quite a lot of things get dismantled at his personal front.
The thing about 'Sultan' is that your guessing game will work up to satiate your ego just fine. But, stop, pause, look behind. The predictable storyline sure has a bunch of sturdy characters backed by a good script. Take for instance, the character played by Randeep Hooda, Sultan's coach. Sure, he's cut from the same cloth of brash intimidating coaches of other sports drama, but he has his standing. He isn't there just to be the impetus for yet another hero rising. Which brings us to Sultan himself.
Salman Khan is a few roaring swats ahead of our expectations when he's inside the ring. The man, soft spoken and good-natured, is set against the contrasting act of wrestling, and there's hardly any hero glorification here. What's amiable is that at every stage, there's a reality check—right from when he fails his test to the times he senses he can't fly over the roofs like when he used to during hey days. The famous paunch scene joins the league.
Aarfa too is etched well; there are definitely the 'you go girl' instances, but none too dramatized. And yes, forfeiting her dreams was imperative for a star to be born, and with mixed emotions, one might still respect the way the trail of events is treated.
The BGM that disperses the rustic charm of a small town man making it big, is catchy. The idea that runs through the story—it's not just a fight inside the ring, it's a fight within you—goes on in a phrasal loop. Special mention to Tyron Woodly and the other real time wrestlers who clearly upped the game by being Salman Khan's opponents.
Another interesting aspect is the induction of quite a lot of commercial prerequisites like love, familial bonds, redemption and sacrifice, and not going over the top with any. Details knitted neatly like a beautiful lace around the scenes come off genuine, like when Sultan squats on the floor of his plush hotel room to eat his roti, which one almost misses, to his 'Namaste' to the opponent once he's beaten him out of the game. And truth pinches you to a chuckle almost when the final song plays out, for it's only in Bollywood that you'll almost have a muscle pull watching an electrifying game, only to be pulled into a romantic song almost immediately thereafter.
But all that fades away in the bloody face of the bellowing blows that greet you once your eyes are set on the ring. Director Ali Abbaz Zafar has played it smart with a well-choreographed and neatly edited old-wine-in-new-bottle film. He even sneaks that point in when Sultan, walking in to the ring for his final game, expecting to lose to the defending champion calls it the story of the 'underdog'.
However, 'Sultan' takes it all in his journey starting with a stupendous suplex, coming all the way to getting it renamed to the mighty 'Sultan Slam', and we 'woot woot' to that!
Onmanorama rating: 3.25/5
