Ikka Review: Overruled By Melodrama

By the time Ikka reaches its overblown finale, complete with a redundant trick ending, the verdict becomes clear: Melodrama wins, logic loses, observes Mayur Sanap.

There is a throwaway line in Ikka: ‘When lawyers don’t convince, they confuse.’

It’s meant for a heated courtroom exchange, but it ironically sums up the film itself.

The narrative wants to convince you with moral dilemmas, courtroom fireworks and hush-hush secrets. This makes all the right ingredients for a gripping legal thriller, but somewhere along the way, Ikka gets carried away by its own theatrics.

That’s disappointing because the film begins with a genuinely compelling conflict.

Sunny Deol’s Lawyer Role

Sunny Deol plays Arjun Mehra, a hotshot lawyer who has long served the influential Gaur family, and whose successful track record has earned him the moniker ‘Ikka’.

Arjun, much like the warrior from the Mahabharata, finds himself trapped in a moral crisis, about the true meaning of justice. But this Arjun has no Krishna beside him to guide him through.

It is nice to how Sunny Deol is presented as a protagonist here, rather than a larger-than-life hero.

He becomes the devil’s advocate to Shouryaman (Akshaye Khanna), the privileged heir of the Gaur family, who is accused of attempting to murder a young woman (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor). Unlike what his name suggests, there is very little courage or dignity to Shouryaman. He is entitled, sleazy, and drunk on power.

Arjun reluctantly takes up Shouryaman’s defence because of a situation involving his wife, Avantika (Dia Mirza), making the case as personal as it is professional.

Courtroom Drama Problems

On paper, Ikka has a compelling setup. With its characters-first approach, it promises an exploration of law and justice. But the problem is that the film rarely trusts the strength of that premise.

Director Siddharth P Malhotra designs as an audience pleaser and, to an extent, it will satisfy viewers looking for old-school courtroom theatrics powered by Sunny Deol’s towering screen presence. But the film’s loud approach often clashes with the moments where the writing tries to be more nuanced.

Instead of allowing courtroom arguments to generate tension organically, the film insists on hammering every point home with relentless background score. Every revelation arrives with thunderous background music. And every courtroom exchange escalates into operatic melodrama, where the film mistakes noise for intensity far too often.

Perhaps melodrama is not much of a problem. Last year’s Telugu drama Court: State vs a Nobody showed that courtroom dramas thrive on fiery monologues and emotional intensity, as long as they are backed by genuine conviction and strong character writing.

The absence of these two elements makes Ikka feel like a throwback to an era Bollywood has largely moved beyond.

The screenplay by Althea Kaushal and Mayank Tewari is cluttered with two competing narrative threads that never quite come together.

The central mystery, about what actually happened that night, should have been enough to keep audiences invested. Instead, it is written tad too conveniently with last-minute witnesses, shocking video evidences, and a cover-up conspiracy that feels increasingly manufactured.

The second thread revolves around Dia Mirza’s Avantika. The film tries to say something meaningful about family, parenthood and marriage through her character, but the writing remains too muddled for any of it to truly land.

The realism doesn’t help either. In one of the wedding photographs, Dia’s real-life husband Vaibhav Rekhi appears in a blink-and-you-miss-it detail, which feels oddly distracting in a film that already asks you to overlook several convenient plot turns!

Sunny Deol vs Akshaye Khanna

Sunny Deol carries the film on his (still) brawny shoulders and delivers his A-game.

The film throws in a self-aware nod to his iconic dhai kilo ka haath image, but Ikka is more interested in showing Sunny in a dramatic space, even putting him in moments of vulnerability. For a man whose career is built around showing explosive rage on screen, it is fascinating to see him constantly controlling that temper here.

The film also occasionally feels like a continuation of his Damini character, where he steps in to fight for a woman seeking justice. That pro-woman stance appears again here when Arjun stops his subordinate and clears he won’t allow ‘character assassination’ of a woman.

The showdown between Sunny Deol and Akshaye Khanna is another major point. Whenever the two share the frame, the energy shifts in these fiery moments. The only issue is that these moments are rather brief, leaving you wanting more from this face-off.

Akshaye’s performance relies heavily on his usual smirking one-liners and a clenched-teeth delivery that makes his act gratingly monotonous. But he gets to deliver one standout courtroom scene where his performative tears and cunning smile remind us why he remains so watchable on screen.

Tillotama Shome is equally impressive. As prosecutor Madhura Banerjee, she brings welcome restraint to a film that desperately needs it. She is presented as an ordinary working woman balancing household responsibilities with professional duties much like Geetanjali Kulkarni from Court. Thanks to Tillotama’s incredible talent, she plays the character with lived-in authenticity that makes her feel real amidst all the surrounding melodrama.

Dia Mirza, unfortunately, is given little beyond the kind of restrained supporting role she has become familiar with lately.

Sanjeeda Shaikh fares even worse. As Akshaye’s docile wife, her subplot feels more like a smokescreen added for dramatic heft, before eventually fading into the background.

By the time Ikka reaches its overblown finale, complete with a redundant trick ending, the verdict becomes clear: Melodrama wins, logic loses.

Ikka streams on Netflix.