Ikka Review: Akshaye Khanna And Sunny Deol's Love-Hate Legal Battle Is An Ace

Dhurandhar, Dhurandhar, Dhurandhar.

That's most of what we've heard of Akshaye Khanna in the past seven months. The unparalleled obsession that his menacing character Rehman Dakait from Aditya Dhar's film unleashed is a rare phenomenon. But it happened.

So one can well imagine that when Netflix announced Siddharth P Malhotra's edge-of-the-seat courtroom drama Ikka, headlined by Akshaye Khanna and Sunny Deol, all hell broke loose. The wait has been excruciatingly long for Akshaye Khanna's fandom.

The long and short of it - Ikka truly is the hukum of Ikka, and Siddharth P Malhotra once again delivers.

For anyone who has followed his previous work, the filmmaker has a distinctive charm for narrating socially conscious stories or character-driven plots - always layered. He does the same with Ikka. It is a well-crafted spiral of who's the hero and who's the villain, and until the very end you are constantly bewildered about who can be trusted. 

Ikka is a high-stakes legal drama centred on defence lawyer Arjun Mehra (Sunny Deol) and murder-suspect Shauryamann Gaur (Akshaye Khanna). Arjun, whose image is that of a lawyer who defends the accused but is incorruptible, is forced to change course when a personal crisis compels him to do the unexpected. In this legal battle - a two-week journey - Arjun can hardly look himself in the mirror. He knows he is defending a former rival out of compulsion, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Director Siddharth P Malhotra grabs your attention from the get-go. The premise opens with Akshaye Khanna as a spoilt, cold antagonist. His 'Dhurandhar' gaze and chilling stare remain intact as menace glows within him. Partying the night away with a woman named Soma Mittal (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor) in his arms, the next thing you know the woman is stabbed and thrown from the car while Khanna's Shauryamann speeds off. Thus begins the trial for an attempted-murder case that has the most unusual ending.

Akshaye Khanna, the son of powerful industrialist Harshvardhan Gaur (Shishir Sharma), now needs to be saved, and who else but Arjun Mehra - the law firm he works for has been associated with the Gaurs for years - and thus he is called upon to handle the case. While Arjun initially refuses because it goes against his ethics, a personal tragedy involving his daughter Samaira Mehra (Daria Bedi) forces him to take it on. As incorruptible as he claims to be, he tries his best to fight a losing battle as ethically as he can.

Among the many twists, the decisive climax truly asserts what Arjun Mehra stands for.

As befitting every Siddharth P Malhotra film, Ikka's female characters have undeniable agency. They are not mere add-ons, and both impress. Dia Mirza is the resilient Avantika Mehra - Arjun's wife and former junior - while Tillotama Shome is the prosecutor Madhura Banerjee. Both are excellent in their own right, given sufficient screen time to establish their characters as necessary plug-ins in the storyline.

Dia Mirza plays a crucial role as tensions escalate. Her painful past with Akshaye Khanna's Shauryamann Gaur, and how years later she must plead for help when a grave illness befalls Arjun and her daughter with Gaur, creates a full circle moment - the kind you detest.

Akshaye Khanna's character is a monster revealed as the story progresses, but such a convincing one that you do indeed love to hate him. In rare moments, especially in his scenes with Dia Mirza - who was his ex-girlfriend before she left him and married Arjun - both give some of their best work. In this sequence, the audience glimpses a rare humane side to Shauryamann, a man who once possessed a heart that pain has turned into an unfeeling existence. The deal he struck with his ex and her husband, who now defends him, and the fact that all three were colleagues, makes him even more repulsive. Yet there remains a flicker of humanity, and Khanna charms his way through.

Sunny Deol's emotional arc impresses. As a father who simply wants to save his daughter, his professional limits blur; his eyes and silences speak more than his words. In court he is Shauryamann's fiercest ally; off court, he questions, demands answers and struggles with the knowledge that the man he defends may be guilty.

The director does a fine job connecting the dots between Arjun and Shauryamann's past rivalry, the reason behind the rage, and the simmering hatred of a man who claims to have always been treated as a 'loser' by Mehra. The love-hate legal battle is indeed an ace.

When Shauryamann is arrested in the murder case, his avaricious background is in full bloom. From an oven to a fridge to enjoying a video game, the jail looks more like a palatial refuge and Shauryamann almost on holiday.

That he is the murderer becomes known to all - most importantly Arjun Mehra. But Arjun's personal circumstances, where his daughter's life is in Shauryamann's hands, prevent him from telling the truth. So he tactfully solves the case and proves Khanna's character not guilty, granting him freedom.

Tillotama Shome is funny, confident and injects measured humour into a serious film. No Sunny Deol picture is complete without a little 'Dhai Kilo Ka Haath' reference, and director Siddharth P Malhotra ensures that joke lands. Shome as Madhura Banerjee is a dedicated prosecutor, in awe of Mehra's reputation. As the case progresses and she ultimately loses, her closing statement for real - "You have won the case, but you have lost in my eyes" - strikes hard.

Not until the last hour do you sense there is another player - Shauryamann Gaur's wife, played by Sanjeeda Shaikh. Distraught and helpless, her tears almost convince you, until her real intentions become apparent. In a limited role, Sanjeeda Shaikh does justice to the wife who is emotionally and physically abused by her husband yet continues to protect him - a genuine partner-in-crime.

In an exclusive conversation with NDTV, director Siddharth P Malhotra said that at every step of the film you will question who is the culprit, who's right, who's wrong, who won and who lost.

And you really do. The case is solved, but the truth only emerges in the final ten minutes when Sunny Deol's Arjun Mehra makes a dramatic entry to a celebratory occasion, invited by Gaur (Akshaye Khanna), who is now free of the murder charge.

But it's not over until it's over. Arjun Mehra - known as the 'Ikka' in the world of law and order - plays his final card, delivering the film's final twist. The real case is resolved in those penultimate minutes, and it makes this watch worth your time.

Ikka keeps you guessing; the twists never feel forced. The editing could be a little crisper, but the final blow lets you overlook it. Definitely a weekend watchlist winner.

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