well,when its a salman film you were walking into, you are always forewarned about the no-script endeavors and nonsense catering to only to his fans. well! things changed a little with "bajrangi baijaan" last year and things also changed favorably with this year's SULTAN.
Sultan is a beautiful love story set within a sports backdrop. The sport is an oft-ignored and oft-looked down upon Indian wrestling and chronicles the journey of a down and out Indian Wrestler to the arena of free style wrestling, all for the sake of the love of a woman.
Sultan (Salman Khan) is a wayward cable operator in remote town in Haryana. His only past times include hanging out with his good for nothing pals and grab kites as they are cut down. During one of his misadventures with kites, he runs into Aarfa (Anushka Sharma), a wrestler aiming for the Olympics. Aarfa makes it clear that she only wants to get married to a wrestler and Sultan joins Aarfa's wrestling Aakhada to get trained to be a wrestler. He makes it to the state selection and gets married to Aarfa. Aarfa sacrifices her olympic opportunity to become a mother. Sultan starts winning bout after bout including tasting success at the Asian as well as the olympic games. Success makes him arrogant and it slowly blinds him with power. He heads for turkey to win an international bout inspite of Aarfa requesting him to stay back as her delivery date is fast approaching. Sultan leaves anyway. He receives the news that Aarfa has given birth to a boy. Ecstatic, he heads back to India and that's when tragedy strikes....
Salman Khan is a revelation in the film, yes he proves that he can "act" and not just stand there as if doing the audience a favor. The scene where he looks at himself with a paunch and breakdowns is one scene where he showcases his acting abilities to the fullest. The scene where Aarfa slaps him and the scene where Aarfa proposes to him are some of the scenes where he truly excels. Anushka Sharma is mind blowing, she literally overshadows the khan in their combination scenes, be it the pre-interval Hospital scene, or her re- introduction scene in the flashback or the scene where she puts Sultan in his place by slapping him, or the silent reactions to sultan's information on TV really proves what an excellent actress she is.
Randeep Hoonda also does his best in the little time he has on screen.
Music By Vishal-Shekhar is good, especially the "baby ko base pasand hain". The lyrics may sound lewd, but watching the song in context of the scene would definitely bring a smile to your lips. Cinematography by Artur Zurawski is good, especially the wrestling scenes, which by the way were well choreographed.
Screenplay by Aditya Chopra lays more emphasis on the romantic aspect which pushes Sultan to his rise and fall and....well! no complaints here as it was engaging.
Ali Abbas Zafar's handling of the subject deserves a pat on the back and kudos for attempting a film of this sort with Salman Khan and still come out a winner.
I would give it a 4.5 on 5 and would recommend it to everyone without any discrimination to their movie tastes.
