When John M. Mathan made SARFAROSH, patriotics movies were in fashion and jingoism was supported. Cut to today, jingoism is completely outdated in Bollywood while novelty is rising. John M. Mathan comes up once again with a rather deja vu script but the way he executes it is what matters. To cut the long story short, SHIKHAR, the movie maker’s latest outing, is highly underrated and trashed for no reasons. Only those who tried drawing unreasonable comparisons between the all different SARFAROSH are finding SHIKHAR hard to accept. For me, SHIKHAR stands on its own feet and deserves no comparisons with a movie of SARFAROSH’s genre at least!
SHIKHAR is about an ambitious movie builder Gaurav Gupta (Ajay Devgan). He wants a piece of land for his dream city which is owned by Guruji (Jawed Sheikh) who believes in the good of nature and humanity more than living life in a materialistic way. Guruji’s son Jaidev (Shahid Kapur) is a mix of traditional ideals as well as practicality. This combination sinks him as he is stuck in the middle of his father’s beliefs and those of Gaurav when he befriends him. GG’s ideals seem more practical to Jaidev in the short term and he goes against his father’s wishes until he finds out what is the actual game that GG is playing with him. GG uses all his cards wisely [giving Jaidev incentives like his girl (Bipasha)]. But eventually Jaidev decides to turn to his father and against GG. Will Jaidev emerge successful? Or has he gone too far into corruption to come back from the disasters his life witnessed?
SHIKHAR is a rather simple good vs. evil plot. You don’t find any reason to catch such a movie, especially at your expense. But when you take the chance, you realize how much worth your investment was. SHIKHAR surprises you like all of its kind. Today, when the script writers are short of novel and plausible scripts, it has to be the director who sets the tone to an already used storyline. We have all witnessed such cases like CHALTE CHALTE, MUJHE KUCCH KEHNA HAI, MAIN HOON NA, BUNTY AUR BABLI etc. where common stories turn successful due to a somewhat likeable execution for a majority of the audience. So therefore what went against SHIKHAR remains a surprise to me. Perhaps some cynics who purposely spread poor word of mouth. If you catch the movie later on with rather lower expectations, you will find out that this movie really was unfairly treated at the Box Office.
The storytelling is sharp. John M. Mathan shows Jaidev’s transformation overseas in a fantastic way. The viewer just can’t get enough of that part of the movie. The politics part of the movie is kept to the minimal so that the commercial element attracts the every-day audiences. Besides, the songs don’t hinder the narrative while the cinematography and background music enthralls. Needless to say, top quality performances take SHIKHAR that extra mile as well. For me, SHIKHAR is technically a very sound product indeed. So why it failed? Who knows!
Moving to performances, SHIKHAR is a three-way movie and it is all those three people who take equal bits of the cake.
Ajay Devgan gives a natural performance after APAHARAN. Right after a completely serious positive role in APAHARAN, Ajay proves his versatility with a witty negative role in SHIKHAR. For sure in this one he doesn’t give a historic performance but he shows that he can do justice to any such role with ease. Shahid Kapoor for the first time is given a role that can be called that of a complete hero. I agree to Shahid’s criticized statement that this is his best performance to date. The actor shows immense maturity as he transforms from an introvertive young boy to an extrovertive, practical man. Even the biggest critic of Shahid would be forced to give the guy a round of applause as he confronts two stalwarts in Ajay (National Award Winner) and Jawed (Lollywood’s biggest star).
Lollywood’s biggest star Jawed Sheikh proves a point: not everyone is going to disgrace Lollywood in Bollywood the way Meera did. Jawed comes in and chips in with a flawless performance. He emotes as per the requirements without going overboard. In the end, he walks tall in a tailor-made role and joins up with Muammar Rana (sp.app. in DOBAARA) in the list of successful Lollywood actors who were appreciated in Bollywood as well.
Amongst the ladies, it is Bipasha who proves that even in such side roles she can leave an impact. Amrita tries hard but is getting typecast. The music is hummable and thus another good performance in my opinion. Also, John Abraham proves his popularity by giving an impactful and very noteworthy special appearance. The rest of the supporting cast is adequate.
Overall, SHIKHAR isn’t a path-breaking movie. But it does convey a social message and does it in a quite commercial manner. It might not be as hard-hitting as SARFAROSH, but no one said that two movies have to be alike.
Do RRC please,
Capt!