To start with, if we skip all the hoopla about the story, the performances, the dialogues etc and submit to this 'Being Human' image rebuilding series of Salman films, Sultan proves to be as good as any other such attempt. But if we are suppose to look at this as a non Bhai- genre melodrama, there is hardly anything that manages to impress.
Salman plays a vulnerable( read blonde) village boy from Haryana. This 30 year young 'jaat' is a small time cable TV business owner who also fancies running around kites and bloody excels at it!
There is Aarfa played by Anushka Sharma, a petite yet strong wrestler with a whole and soul mission of winning a gold medal at the Olympics for India. There is a very casual attempt to establish that this story is of and from the Rewari district of Haryana, but every time any of the lead actors deliver a dialogue, this premise falls flat on its face. With a confused accent ranging from UP, Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan, let's strike 'method acting' off our expectation list.
There are these real trained hardcore 'akhada' wrestlers and there is our old guy with big muscles and bigger heart beating the shit out of them. The extremely focused Aarfa gives into our guy's determination by the end of 3 songs. A very long flashback littered with cliches takes us through the rise and fall of Sultan and Aarfa's love story.
While entertainment is almost guaranteed, what goes completely wrong is the pretentious and futile attempt at feminism. Sultan is unabashedly male and reeks of sexism at multiple levels. As would be appreciated by our Indian society, the hero achieves what the female lead has been striving for in almost one fourth the time and effort. Also, while she happily gives up on her dreams, because obviously that is ideal thing to do, he doesn't even show any signs of remorse.
The second half is packed with grueling action and hence is much better than the first.
Anant Sharma as Salman's friend is surely a good find and thankfully the one guy who gets the Haryanvi right. Randeep Hooda and Kumud Mishra with their acting finesse are a saving grace to a otherwise sullen flick.
And yes, how can we ignore the blatant "inspiration" from the GOT theme in the background score?
Sadly, another box office cash churner that lacks ambition and fails to rise above mediocrity thanks to its star power.
Cutting Rating - 2 full 1 cutting/ 5
