Firstly, a significant amount of time has passed since Sikaar's theatrical release. And this is ideally not the best time to write reviews, which is usually written within a week after the film’s premiere. However, there was a delay in writing about it because I got caught up in a busy schedule. And also now that the dust has settled, let’s take a look back at Sikaar.
In writer-director Debangkar Borgohain’s Sikaar (2024), there isn’t any novelty in terms of its plot. The story is the same: a man seeks revenge for the death of his beloved - which we have already seen more than a few times now. And this man will stop at nothing to bring the killers to justice. Like most films starring Zubeen Garg in the lead, Sikaar too was much hyped across when it was released theatrically on September 20, 2024. Some reviews went on to claim that Sikaar launched a new wave of Assamese cinema. Reviewers also inflated their reviews with statements like: Assam has not seen any movie like this yet. Is it only the case, though?
Zubeen Garg plays Shankar, a tea garden leader, who is always vocal about the concerns of the workers in the garden. When he calls for a strike to protest against the workers’ exploitation in the garden, the son of the owner travels from London with some of his foreign investor friends to mediate the conflict. But unbeknownst to the owner’s son, his corrupt investor friends hatch a plan to traffick girls and women from the garden under the pretext of offering them jobs outside India. Unfortunately for them, a local girl from the village, Astami (Dhyani Mohan) overhears their plan. When she tries to threaten them, they kill her without any mercy putting an end to her voice forever.
Before the love story between Shankar and Astami could take shape, she faced an untimely death. And now, with the foreigner friends having already left India, Shankar only has one way to bring about justice for Astami. He must travel to London on his own might and find her killers. This is where the Ghajini-like scenario morphed into that of Dunki as we see Shankar managing deals to cross the seven seas without official documentation. Moreover, if you’ve watched any of the Sunny Deol-starrer Gadar movies, you’ve already seen men cross international borders and enter foreign countries to prove their love.
Threadbare and nonsensical plots are pretty much a given in a Zubeen Garg film, as the sequence of events and character arcs are pretty much there only to set up the next moment where Zubeen Garg can land some ridiculous one-liners. While the plan of the foreigner friends to smuggle weed in the guise of dry tea was interesting, we don’t see it materialise. That’s because even before the plan was executed Shankar’s love interest died and now Zubeen Garg is the front and centre of the narrative.
In Sikaar, Shankar is both Sanjay Singhania and Hardayal Singh Dhillon. The search is similar and so is the love. Only Shankar doesn’t lose his memory here but his face colour. Zubeen Garg’s skin is darkened with a brown colour so that he can play Shankar, a common tea-tribe lad. Sometimes this colour appears to be darker on Garg’s face making us question who was in charge of maintaining continuity in the film. Also to note is a discourse around the justifications of darkening an actor’s face for portraying a character from a marginalized or minority community.
It is also observed that some reviewers have emphasised Sikaar as the ultimate instance in the history of cinema in Assam in which a movie has emphasised the story and cause of the tea tribe community in Assam. However, Sikaar's portrayal of their issues and their way of life is so minimal that it comes across as apologetic and insincere. Abdul Majid and Manas Robin have both directed films that have more effectively showcased the lifestyle and causes of the tea-tribe community in Assam. The direct-to-video releases such as Manas Robin's Hero and Champa, and Rajesh Bhuyan's Jhumka, which starred actor Akashdeep in the lead, were extremely popular among the masses in Assam.
Moreover, two actors from Sikaar - Zubeen Garg and Urmila Mahanta have themselves appeared in two major productions – Saat Noboror Sandhanot and Mini which have dealt with the issues of the community in greater detail. Today, many tea-tribe youth, now empowered by technology, have produced films that tell their own stories. So, given the fact that majority of Sikaar is set in London, where does it fit into this situation?
Giving credit where credit is due, there is a song called Ekadoshi Ratiya featuring the jhumur dance in Sikaar that is beautifully sung and picturized. Apart from that, though, I fail to see why characters from a movie about tea tribes would be singing songs like Xaturangi in pure Assamese language. In the context of the movie, it is a dream song, but it also raises the question of whether the tea-tribe community dreams in Assamese. This is the dishonesty that the film knowingly or unknowingly commits to in an attempt to go bigger and more popular. In that sense, the films by Abdul Majid and Manas Robin were authentic to the point that all the songs were rooted in the language, stories and tunes of the community.
There is also an inherent tendency to romanticise the community’s struggles, but Sikaar rides on the tricky ground as it tries to reverse the gaze, that has victimized the tea-tribe communities in many productions, to a certain extent. The film gives us a character that is dominant, assertive, and at the same time, has ownership of his subjectivity. However, the movie also presents Adil Hussain, who plays CID Pran Goswami, as a virtuous, upper-caste man who ultimately saves the day for Shankar. Yet again it must be noted, with a stress on the surnames, that four of the six key characters in the film are played by Zubeen Garg, Dhyani Mohan, Siddhartha Sharma and Urmila Mahanta.
This is made worse by the half-baked set-ups (the movie rushed Astami's death, which is one of the main reasons I felt no emotion at all), incredibly convenient coincidences, and glossed-over character motivations that make up much of Sikaar's storytelling. For example, Shankar gets to know about Astami’s death after overhearing a drunk, fellow community brother’s self-blabbering about the murder. How convenient!
And once Shankar gets to London, such co-incidences only get worse. Another example is how he meets Arlene (Urmila Mahanta). Then, as the movie begins to milk as much emotion as it can from Arlene’s tragic past and her relationship with Shankar, it gets really difficult to sit through. In one scene Arlene mentions her mother, and Shankar replies “Xeitu Ako Ki?”
While in London, Sikaar gets so lost in its scope that it loses its storytelling connect to the tea garden in Assam. After a point the repeated time-lapse shots and montages of London street views feels like the filmmakers are practically yelling: “Look its London. We are in London”, directly into the faces of the audience.
The makers of Sikaar wanted the movie to be as successful in Assam as Zubeen Garg's Mission China and Kanchanjangha were. As a result, they borrow a page from Zubeen Garg’s filmmaking manual and move the movie from Assam to London in order to make it look slick and stylish. They also hire a number of Western actors to flesh out the cast and put as much of the dialogue as possible in English.
The story is shorthand for pandering wildly to a particular demographic—and you probably know it if you don’t belong to it. And we are only being fed the key events and plot points of the narrative without any sense of engagement. This is why the story in Sikaar feels like operating as a summary of a better story that doesn’t exist.
Once the hunt for vengeance begins and the local police get involved, the movie becomes a childish game of Chor Police (Cops and Robbers) because it lacks the required maturity and depth. And in the name of tribal hunting skills, Shankar displays some unconvincing catapulting skills which will put Hawkeye to shame. But credit has to be given where it is due. Some of the action sequences in Sikaar are lavish and well-designed which increases the scope for action cinema in the region but even so, it becomes fairly repetitive and predictable by the end. There is also the notorious use of green screen to depict the characters lost in the crowded streets of London which looks fake and amateurish in a film of such high production value. And it’s also hard to understand why a green screen was being used since the cast and crew were filming in London anyway.
In certain moments in the film, Zubeen Garg displays conviction and lends in a strong emotional core to the narrative, which makes me want to believe again that there is a good actor within Zubeen Garg. Unfortunately, a film like Sikaar isn’t helping him much. Hopefully, the films he does next will challenge that and allow him to showcase his true acting abilities.
