Ikkis Cast/Actors: Dharmendra, Asrani, Agastya Nanda, Simar Bhatia, Jaideep Ahlawat, Rahul Dev, Sikandar Kher, Vivaan Shah, Zakir Hussain & Others
Ikkis Director: Sriram Raghavan
Ikkis Production House: Maddock Films
Ikkis Movie Release Date: 1st January, 2026
Ikkis Movie Available On: Theatrical Release (likely to be released on Amazon Prime OTT Platform)
Ikkis Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Ikkis Movie Runtime: 2h 27m
Ikkis Movie Review:
It’s a fine story to tell. Of youthful enthusiasm, courage, martyrdom, nostalgia and emotions that rule on both sides of the border.
It’s also heart-tugging to watch Dharmendra in his last celluloid appearance in a role tailormade for the son-of-the-soil. When he, as long retired Brigadier Madan Lal Khetarpal, sentimentally revisits Sargodha and his family home in Pakistan before the Partition, it is entirely believable. Add to it his recital of a self-penned poem on the draw of his pind (village) and it’s only Dharmendra who could have given such authenticity to the Punjabi with nostalgia flowing unfettered out of him.
Eager and fresh-faced Agastya Nanda as 2nd Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal is a welcome gush of pleasantness.
Dharmendra and Agastya Nanda are the centrepieces of the two stories that run parallel. Anchored by a strong Jaideep Ahlawat (as Pak Brigadier Jaan Mohammed Nisar) who straddles both stories.
One set in 1971. The Indo-Pak war where the bravery of tank commander Arun Khetarpal earned him a Param Vir Chakra – posthumously.
30 years later, his ageing father’s visit to Pakistan for a college reunion where his host Brigadier Jaan Mohammed Nisar pulls out the stops with his mehmaan nawazi (hospitality).
War stories, whether Germans are cast as devils during the World Wars or Pakistanis as the monsters in conflicts with India, tend to take sides.
Writer-director Sriram Raghavan and co-writers Arijit Biswas and Pooja Ladha Surti linger on the goodness that exists on both sides. Perhaps overdoing it too as hospitality and the wantonness of war may be sentiments residing in some quarters on the other side too. But Pak bonhomie and love for all things Indian, especially in 2001 after the Kargil war, seem more like Sriram’s wishful fantasy.
There are stand-alone scenes that make touchingly understandable statements. In Sargodha, a Pak soldier who’s lost a leg in the war with India, is resentful of the welcome given to the retired Indian soldier. Madan Lal blunts it with a hug and the soft remark, ‘You lost a leg. I lost a son.’ War truly has no winners.
But that is the only moment of friction that Raghavan allows in his storytelling.
Most effective are the scenes between guest and host in Pakistan, the latter uncertain about how to but determined to reveal to the Indian that he was there when the 21-year-old braveheart had died, taking with him several Pak tanks and halting the enemy’s march into India. It is a soldier-to-soldier moment, grief for Khetarpal, remorse for Nisar, both bonded by pride and praise for Arun’s bravery till the last breath.
But Sriram’s retelling of the two stories is slow and at times confusing. Much time is spent on the familiar template of Arun’s life in the Poona Horse Regiment, where discipline, camaraderie, romance and getting prepped for action, take a long time and don’t lay out anything new.
There is also the unstructured nature of the writing, swerving from 1971 to 2001.
Cinema doesn’t have to Pak-bash for acceptability. But, at some point, Sriram also starts telling the 1971 war from Nissar’s perspective leading to so much blurring that at places, it’s tough to tell if it’s the Pak army that’s on the move or the Indian. By the time he gets to the part where Nisar tells Madan the tragic truth about his part in Arun’s death, the startling revelation that should’ve been a sentimental high, is bogged down by weariness.
The distracted storytelling leads to an inability to be fully invested in Arun Khetarpal’s courage and tragic end. It’s true of other characters too. For instance, Khetarpal’s colleague Captain Vijender Malhotra (Vivaan Shah) and his bonding with and parting from a pet German Shepherd goes on ineffectively somewhere in the background. Arun’s seniors, Rahul Dev as Lt Col Hanut Singh and Sikandar Kher as Risaldar Sagat Singh, have a few moments to mark their presence. While most dialogues are routine, Arun’s breathlessly enthusiastic remark that he’s carrying his golf kit to play in Lahore is typical of youthful optimism with Hanut Singh’s observation that he doesn’t know war, equally telling.
But there is overdoing of shots like the mitthi bit (carrying a handful of earth back home), featuring at least four times.
The romance between Arun and Kirti Kochar (Simar Bhatia) is sweet but their breakup is effete especially given her association with army life.
Therefore, certain moments that should’ve struck the heart don’t leave a mark.
Also, however authentic the barbaric ritual may be, there really was no need for the insensitive scene where each officer in Khetarpal’s regiment butchers a goat before applying the ceremonial tikka on the tank.
Ikkis – Watch Or Not?: A different take on a war story, the pace will be a put off.
Ikkis Movie Review Score Rating: 3 out of 5 (i.e. 3/5)
Ikkis Official Trailer:
Credits: Maddock Films
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source https://lehren.com/ikkis-movie-review-sentimental-overload/
