Celebrating 7 Years Of Salman Khan’s Sultan
Many, including this writer, regard Salman Khan’s performance in Ali Abbas Zafar’s Sultan as among his best, alongside Tere Naam, Hum..Dil De Chuke Sanam and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Wrestling with adversaries, both within and in the ring, Salman transformed into the character like he seldom does.
Recalling the film fondly, director Ali Abbas Zafar says, “Sultan is very close to my heart. It’s a very special film, for me personally it was one of the most challenging films of my career till date. The love it gets from the audience till now makes all of us feel very grateful. It’s a film that talks about standing up and fighting back and I feel every one of us feels that emotion once in life. Never to give up is the soul of Sultan.”
Ali, who later directed Salman in Tiger Zinda Hai, says, “Sultan gave me certain standing as a filmmaker. I also know what some great man said about success — that with power comes responsibility. I was expected to deliver an even bigger film after Sultan. I didn’t want to think about this. I was just happy that the film connected with the audience. And when a real-life wrestler like Sangram Singh said Salman looked authentic doing the wrestling moves, I feel we had achieved what we set out to do.”
Ali Abbas Zafar is proud of Sultan. “When people say Sultan did to wrestling what Chak De! did to hockey, I feel elated. It takes a star like Salman or Shah Rukh Khan to get audiences into the theatre to watch a film about a game that isn’t cricket or football. There is that ‘mitti ki khushboo’ in the presentation. And audiences sensed it. It’s embedded in the game of wrestling. If I had made a film about, say, fencing or boxing, I don’t think it would have had the same impact. Every Indian identifies with wrestling. Kushti is a sport we all know.”
Salman pushed himself physically and emotionally to a new level of commitment in Sultan.
Playing the good-hearted, solidly dependable Haryanvi wrestler, Salman brought a kind of feisty vulnerability along with a spiritual certainty to his instantly likeable character. He was no longer interested in being Salman Khan on screen. The physical and emotional transformation is so palpable and authentic as to remind us of what Robert De Niro achieved in and outside the boxing ring in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull… okay, I am exaggerating. But you get the picture?
Salman’s accent is pitch-perfect. And that’s where the performance begins. While the actor takes himself dead seriously, the film is remarkably light-hearted and free-spirited even though the underlying message — sometimes to be a true hero you’ve got to fall hard on the ground before you pick yourself up again — is never squandered in the outward frivolity that grips the narrative as, for long stretches, Salman plays the super-smitten lover-boy who can’t get enough of Aarfa (Anushka Sharma).
In Sultan, Salman plays the title role of a 40-year-old boxer. It required a huge amount of preparation. Salman would have to change his entire physique and body language. It entailed many months of a strict exercise regime and a rigid diet control so he could acquire a boxer’s body. Not a false note is struck in the ring or outside it. Salman seemed to play the wrestler even as fate played with the wrestler’s life.
It’s a classic fall-from-grace story, with the fallen sports champ redeeming himself with the help of an eager, determined manager (Amit Sadh) and a trainer (Randeep Hooda, with his trademark arrogant attitude).
Hooda looks Sultan up and down and declares, “I don’t train dead people.” Hooda should have realized by now: he is excellent as a second lead, not cut out for leads.
This is a funny, engaging, and satisfying film brimming with many moments of joie de vivre. The wrestling sequences, done with a choreographic candour, are outstanding. Salman slams his opponents with such intensity that you wonder if the ricocheting ruckus in the wrestling ring is a metaphor for what this film is sure to do at the box office.
All said and done, Sultan is a love story first, then a sports film. Director Ali Abbas Zafar doesn’t distill the drama with interpolations. Though lengthy, the characters never lose their plot. They are written into a tightly edited pastiche of pain and pleasure, unleashed with honesty and charm.
The film is shot by Artur Zurawski with the stress on capturing the glory and grandeur of the sport only in the context of the protagonist’s emotions. Nothing in Sultan stands out. It all blends in and merges into the very impressive larger picture.
Staggeringly engaging, remarkably rugged, and unexpectedly romantic, Sultan is every bit the comprehensive blockbuster it promised to be. Watching the accomplished storytelling and the deft characterizations in Sultan, it is hard to believe that this work comes from the director of Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and Gunday. Quite a dizzying climb!