Surprisingly Good.

Rating: 8/10 (6 July 2016)

Sultan is a fictitious tale of a local Haryana wrestler set amid-st the backdrop of love, loss and wrestling. The film starts with introduction to Pro take-down which is basically UFC(they obviously cannot use the name due to copyright). Pro take-down has spent 2 years in India and hasn't generated money or audience and the promoters are thinking of shutting it down. But the owner played by Amit Sadh asks the promoters for a last chance. Sultan Ali Khan played by Salman Khan is a fun loving person who is aimless in his life and tries his hands at doing odd jobs when he chances upon Aarfa played by Anushka Sharma who is a wrestler. Obviously Sultan falls for her and gets his heart broken which leads him to become a wrestler and later win Arfha's heart and many gold medals and a world championship. From there on success gets to his head and it leads to his downfall in his personal & professional life. Amit tries to recruit Sultan for Pro take-down but Sultan is adamant not to, but somehow decides for it later. From there on its about his redemption and getting his image back and how a 40 year old pot bellied local wrestler steps into a MMA ring.
For a long time Salman's movie have defied good story and screenplay but have managed to gross tons of money riding just on his star power. Things seems to be changing after last year's Bajrangi Bhaijaan and continues with Sultan. This movie has a good story and is narrated well by the director Ali Abbas Zafar. It has all the feel of a good drama with Earnest acting by the cast, generous doses of humor, good action scenes and some laid back Bollywood style romance with songs pictured in a farm where people are wearing leather jackets 😂. Editing although could have been a little more crisp as the only big flaw this movie suffers from is the length. It feels stretched at a 170 minutes. Fight and training scenes have been nicely choreographed and it shows that the director has payed a lot of attention to it as it shows on the screen.
Salman as Sultan is Sultan minus the star power and swag of Salman Bhai. He is so not himself in this movie which is such a breath of fresh air. There is a line in the movie where Sultan says that he is not a superman and it is exactly what is shown in the movie. He earns to be placed where he is in the movie with hard training albeit in a shorter frame of time(typically Bollywood). Anushka as Aarfa is brilliant again as she plays a Jaat wrestler to perfection who is trying to show that women don't belong only in the kitchen. Then there is Sultan's best friend Govind played by Anant Sharma who nails his role to perfection. Kumud Mishra as Arfha's father and Sultan's initial coach is bang on his role. Randeep Hooda as fakir Singh, shines in his 10 min guest appearance as Sultan's MMA coach.
The whole film has generous doses of Haryanvi and the English accent that comes from them and it is hilarious. Salman, Anant and Anushka are just too good in their accent which is a major brownie point for this movie. The songs are very good and are not dished out unnecessarily. The female version of Jag Ghoomeya in the ending moments of the movie gave me goosebumps.
I will definitely recommend this movie to everyone, especially to the not so loyal salman fans as this one genuinely has a good story and earnest performance by the star cast.