‘Sikandar Ka Muqaddar’ review: An obsessive hunt runs out of purpose

Neeraj Pandey’s Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is a dilemma wrapped within a mystery. Can Mumbai police officer Jaswinder prove that a software engineer is guilty of stealing diamonds even though the evidence points to the contrary? And can Pandey, a seasoned purveyor of obsessive hunts in which morally righteous hunters always get the ethically compromised hunted in the end, challenge himself?

Both the answers are in by the end of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, which is based on an original story by Pandey and a screenplay shared with Vipul K Rawal. Only one is somewhat satisfactory.

The 143-minute Netflix movie balances suspense with ambivalence for at least half its runtime. Summoned to investigate the purloining of solitaires at a gem show, Jaswinder (Jimmy Sheirgill) gets fixated on Sikandar (Avinash Tiwary) and Kamini (Tamannaah Bhatia) as the perpetrators. Jaswinder spends 15 years chasing his conviction, at a personal and professional cost to himself.

Sikandar and Kamini suffer too. Jaswinder resorts to dubious methods beyond legally permissible parameters because he believes that his “manovritti” – or instinct – about criminals is always right. Might Jaswinder be wrong, just this once?

The film demands close watching, particularly in its initial momentum-heavy scenes. This is bad news for the alert viewer who has figured out the modus operandi early on and has to...

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