It isn’t as if Sultan doesn’t struggle with its profusion of familiar tropes. There’s your underdog-to-champion, in which child-like Jat Sultan is shown starting from nothing, becoming a world champion in no time at all (yes, there is some sweat and tears involved in the training, but not too much, because hey, this is Bollywood ).
There’s a romance which involves risible songs and dialogue ( ‘Baby ko bass pasand hai’, with a shift-and-lift-of-male-and-female derriers).
But the girl in question, played by Anushka Sharma with sparkle, is a wrestler herself. She is a woman with ambition, and she’s made to talk of uplifting `mothers’ and `sisters’ in patriarchal Jatland.
here’s a moment somewhere in the beginning of the film when Salman khan’s character comes to a halt at a rail crossing, and waits, just like the rest of us do, for the train to pass. In that instant we know that Sultan is about to push twin boundaries.
Of a star’s scope, and of mainstream Bollywood. That this will not be the super-human, super-hero Bhai who has been shown crossing the tracks just a whisker ahead of a rushing locomotive from one of his several forgettable flicks.
That this will be a Khan who has to, literally, do a lot of heavy-lifting to win the crown. And win it he does.
‘Sultan’ has him breaking free from Bhai-giri bondage by getting his character to crack and bleed. His down-and-out wrestler has foibles, is fallible, is human.
Sultan Ali Khan has faults, and is punished for it. Because of which Sultan scores, and delivers a solid entertainer with heft. It isn’t as if Sultan doesn’t struggle with its profusion of familiar tropes.
There’s your underdog-to-champion, in which child-like Jat Sultan is shown starting from nothing, becoming a world champion in no time at all (yes, there is some sweat and tears involved in the training, but not too much, because hey, this is Bollywood ).
There’s a romance which involves risible songs and dialogue ( ‘Baby ko bass pasand hai’, with a shift-and-lift-of-male-and-female derriers).
But the girl in question, played by Anushka Sharma with sparkle, is a wrestler herself. She is a woman with ambition, and she’s made to talk of uplifting `mothers’ and `sisters’ in patriarchal Jatland.