Exclusive/ All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Taran Adarsh's Scathing Comments On Salman Khan's Sikandar Flop

Salman Khan returned on the big screen on Eid with his latest offering, Sikandar. However, the film was far from the festive treat, audiences were expecting. Sikandar has been receiving criticism for its dull storyline, lackadaisical acting, bizarre screenplay and substandard VFX. In an exclusive chat with Republic Media Network, trade analyst Taran Adarsh spoke about all that went wrong with Salman Khan and the A.R. Murugadoss directorial.

‘Sikandar is a royal mess’, Taran Adarsh rips apart Salman Khan starrer

In his severely critical review of Sikandar on the day of its release, Taran Adarsh called the Salman Khan film ‘a letdown’ and one of the actor's weakest. Building on this, the trade analyst shared, “I am very disappointed with the film. When you have such a huge star - Salman Khan, returning on Eid, with AR Murugadoss, who has delivered Ghajini and Holiday, and producer Sajid Nadiadwala, you expect a solid entertainer, you expect a major motion picture which keeps you engrossed for 2 and a half hours. Unfortunately, Sikandar does not have that. All that glitters is not gold. The screenplay of the movie is absolutely faulty and does not hold up.”

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Sharing his takeaway from the Sikandar debacle, Adarsh cautioned, “Never take your audience for granted.” When asked if the Khans should retire, the expert opined, “They should do slightly mature roles. I don't agree with the song and dance routine that comes in the first 30 minutes of this film (Sikandar). You want to watch a real, good entertainer. Song and dance routines are important in a commercial film, but you also need to have some solid content. This film lacks that. This film is not going to work because the word of mouth is bad, and major centres are not performing as well as they were expected.”

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Addressing the slump in Bollywood and big budget movies failing miserably at the box office, Taran Adarsh argued, “The problem with the Hindi film industry is that we have been making proposals, not movies. I have seen the era of Mr Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, and Shatrughan Sinha; they used to listen to stories and say an instant yes or no. But nowadays, the story is handed over to the manager, who then tells the actor about the script. The actor needs to perform, if the script goes to 10-15 people, where is the conviction of actor?” He stressed that the business aspect of the film takes precedence over the story which is why ‘script goes for a toss’. He concluded by saying that a film like Pushpa works because it is "hardcore entertainment".

Also Read: Sikandar Fails To Impress Fans, Critics Blame Scriptwriters' ‘Laziness’

Affected by negative word of mouth, Sikandar has failed to hold steady at the box office. The Salman Khan starrer opened to a decent ₹26 crore in India and added another ₹29 crore to its kitty on the second day. At the time of publishing, the movie had minted ₹14.58 crore, taking its total to ₹ 69.58 Cr, as per Sacnilk. Despite the extended Eid holiday, the film has been moving at a slow pace at the domestic box office.