Sultan (2016) Review: A Star Vehicle in a Wrestling Ring

Is Sultan worth watching?

It depends on how much you enjoy a mass-hero sports saga. Sultan is a rousing, overlong Hindi melodrama that works best as a showcase for Salman Khan’s star power and less well as a wrestling film. Its training montages and bouts are staged for maximum cheers, and Anushka Sharma brings real spark as a wrestler with ambitions of her own. But at nearly three hours, with stretches of sentiment and physics-defying heroics, it tests the patience of anyone not already on its side.

What is Sultan about?

Sultan Ali Khan (Salman Khan) was once a celebrated wrestler from Haryana, but when the film opens he is a withdrawn, middle-aged man living quietly and refusing to talk about his past. When a promoter (Amit Sadh) arrives looking for a local hero to headline a new professional fighting league, the story flashes back to Sultan’s youth: his late start in wrestling, his romance with Aarfa (Anushka Sharma), a gifted wrestler from a wrestling family, and the rise that made him famous. The present-day thread follows his attempt to step back into the ring.

Sultan is directed by Ali Abbas Zafar and was released in July 2016. It is a Hindi-language Indian production that runs 170 minutes, with Randeep Hooda, Kumud Mishra and Parikshat Sahni in the supporting cast.

Salman Khan’s comeback, on and off the mat

The film is designed around its star, and it knows exactly what his audience wants. Salman Khan plays Sultan in two modes: a cocky, lovable village boy in the flashbacks and a heavier, wounded man in the present. The earlier half gives him easy charm and comic swagger; the later half asks for a quieter, more physical performance, and he is more convincing there than in some of his other vehicles from the period.

The wrestling sequences are loud and energetic, built on slow motion, crowd reaction and a pounding soundtrack. They are enjoyable as spectacle, but they owe more to superhero cinema than to the sport, and viewers who know wrestling will notice how often the film bends reality to keep its hero on his feet.

Anushka Sharma supplies the spine

The most interesting person in Sultan is Aarfa. Anushka Sharma plays her as a proud, driven athlete in a world that expects women to step aside, and her early scenes with Sultan have a sparky, combative rhythm that the rest of the film lacks. When the story considers her ambitions, it briefly becomes a more thoughtful film about sacrifice and who gets to chase a dream.

Unfortunately, the script does not stay with that idea for long. Aarfa’s arc is ultimately bent around Sultan’s, and the gender politics the film raises are dropped in favour of his redemption. Randeep Hooda, as a trainer who enters the story later, adds gruff credibility but is underused.

Too much of everything

Sultan’s biggest problem is length. At 170 minutes it contains a romance, a sports biopic, a marital drama and a comeback film, and each section plays out at full volume. Songs pause the story repeatedly, the sentiment is laid on thickly, and the second half’s training and fight sequences stretch far beyond what the narrative needs. There is an effective two-hour film in here, but it is buried under excess.

Released in the same year as Dangal, another Hindi film about Haryana wrestling, Sultan inevitably invites comparison, and next to that film’s specificity and restraint it feels more like a vehicle than a story.

Who should watch Sultan?

It is a clear choice for Salman Khan fans, for viewers who love big-hearted Hindi sports dramas with plenty of songs and speeches, and for anyone in the mood for an old-fashioned underdog comeback. It is not a good fit for viewers who want a realistic portrait of wrestling or a brisk runtime; set aside an evening. Violence is limited to the ring, with some bruising fights, and the melodrama gets emotionally heavy in places.

If it hits the spot, try these:

• Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the defining Yash Raj Films romance, for the studio’s big-hearted love-story tradition that Sultan, another Yash Raj production, draws on.
• Animal, for another long, star-driven Hindi drama about a volatile man, though far darker and more divisive.

The verdict

Sultan is a big, sentimental crowd-pleaser with a charismatic star, a strong co-lead and several stirring bouts, but it is weighed down by its length and its willingness to sacrifice everything, including its most interesting character, to its hero. Fans of the genre will be entertained; others may wish it had tapped out sooner.

Rating: 3/5