Ikka review: Sunny Deol shouts, Akshaye Khanna repeats Dhurandhar in a flat courtroom drama

IKkaDirector: Siddharth P. MalhotraCast: Sunny Deol, Akshaye Khanna, Tillotama ShomeRating: 2.5/5Akshaye Khanna and Sunny Deol. Unitedly. In a courtroom dramatic event.On paper unaccompanied, that's an resistless combining. But as the saying goes, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Ikka turns out to be a damp squib. Fikka (bland in English) would have been a more fitting title.What is the plot of Ikka?The story, written by Althea Kaushal, revolves around Soma Mittal (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor), who is partying with Shauryaman Gaur (Akshaye Khanna) one night and, in the very next scene, is dumped on the roadside from a car, half dead. There's an eyewitness, Shauryaman is arrested. Being the son of a powerful politician, Shauryaman specifically asks for Arjun Mehra, aka Ikka (Sunny Deol), to defend him.Arjun refuses, insisting that only a miracle could make him take up the case. The very same day, his daughter is diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer and the only compatible bone marrow donor turns out to be Shauryaman himself. And thus begins Ikka.As you have probably gathered from the premise itself, Ikka isn't quite the clever courtroom thriller it promises to be. Instead, it leans heavily on convenient twists that stretch credibility far too often. Directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra, the film is so fascinated with its two leading men that, at times, the courtroom battle itself feels less important than the personal stories of Shauryaman and Arjun. The problem is, even those stories remain half-baked. Ikka is more interested in creating moments where its stars can play to their strengths: Akshaye Khanna gets to furrow his brows with trademark intensity, while Sunny Deol gets to slam tables and raise his voice.There's no way to know whether this was the makers' decision or Akshaye Khanna's own choice, but the Dhurandhar hangover is impossible to miss. The bad wig aside, the film goes all in on building his aura. It reaches a point where a man being produced in court for a murder case makes a slow-motion entry to a thumping background score, as though he's a superhero making a grand entrance. In what world is that supposed to make sense? The film wants to be a slick, edge of the seat courtroom thriller. One could even have overlooked its many convenient plot developments had it delivered a genuinely engaging cerebral drama. Instead, it settles for something generic, never becoming as smart or gripping as it sets out to be. The climax could have been more hard-hitting.The performances don't help matters either. Throughout the film, characters keep talking about what a brilliant lawyer Sunny Deol's Arjun Mehra is. The audience is never actually shown why. As both a doting father and a man coping with his daughter's illness, Deol struggles to make an emotional impact. Akshaye, meanwhile, is essentially playing Dhurandhar's Rehman Dakait all over again. Need we say more?Dia Mirza, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in a loop of playing similar roles. After portraying a concerned mother in Alpha, she returns as another helpless mother in Ikka. Thankfully, her warm screen presence lends the character some credibility. Tillotama Shome is handed over a frustratingly underwritten role as the prosecuting lawyer, while Akansha Ranjan Kapoor is left with virtually nothing to do despite being the story's central character.The VerdictOverall, Ikka doesn't leave you debating its twists or admiring its legal fight as the best courtroom dramas often do. Instead, it leaves you wondering how a film with Sunny Deol and Akshaye Khanna ended up feeling this ordinary. With sharper writing and greater faith in its courtroom conflict than in its stars' larger than life personas, Ikka could have been a gripping thriller. Instead, it settles for being a forgettable drama that mistakes swagger for substance.