Based on a novel by the same name, Sultan Of Delhi follows the story of the rise of a young man against all odds in the mafia circuit of Delhi. The story here is very routine and nothing that you may not have watched already. But even if I were to keep this aspect of the series aside, the narrative style itself is too safe and outdated, even in the OTT space. This is a period drama, and I would directly have to compare it with the show ‘Jubilee’ which had set the bar so high that this didn’t quite seem to be anywhere near it. Even the gangster genre which was so well handled in an otherwise routine story in Bambai Meri Jaan, just felt half-baked. And unfortunately here, this was the story of the report card of Sultan Of Delhi. The screenplay here standing at 9 episodes ranging from 30 odd to 40 odd minutes had a lot of potential to setup things while playing around with the character dynamics. But that too is laced with a routine narrative style which is soapy and over-the-top while being cringe-worthy at times, that just did not hold my attention enough.

The drama begins on a decent note with the timeline being the year 1947, the year of the partition and the riots which was a black mark in the history of the two countries, India and Pakistan. Amidst this, you are introduced to a young protagonist and his father who make it to India alive, after their entire family is slaughtered in Lahore(presented in a horrific manner). Soon, the protagonist is tactfully acquainted with his surroundings, forming a bond with a few people before imbibing the virtue of maturity along the way. Soon, his journey begins after helping out a businessman who is involved in smuggling of weapons and drugs across the country, thus kickstarting his journey in the mafia world.

The proceedings are watchable but far too predictable with the writing being the biggest letdown. I found a few of the characters randomly popping onscreen every now and then, without them being introduced with a coherent purpose onscreen. The events too are a little coherent as the drama keeps switching between a love angle and the actual game of one-upmanship between the parties. And the love-story was too frivolous and half-baked for my liking, and given that it had a recall value later on in the plot, it didn’t evoke the required feelings for me. On top of it, some incidents are just so random(not to mention cringe-worthy) and swaying away from the plot, that it had me wondering on what the intention of the writing was. For instance, a character randomly making out with an air-hostess in a plane, why?? Also, what was the need to bring back a supposedly dead character, only to kill him off immediately?

The drama scores when it chooses to focus on the interpersonal relationships between characters, some of whom have layers. There is a genuine purpose there and I wish that was the tone of the drama as opposed to feequent bouts of ‘soapiness’. There aren’t too many curveballs along the way and the drama does move at the same bandwidth too but the events are pretty routine. The events leading to the final act did promise a knockout finale but quite shockingly so, it resulted in a weird final act. The multiple twists were completely out of the blue, and with the character motivations not drawn well, the finale act was a complete washout. Overall, the screenplay is predictable and that is probably the best thing that I can say in this piece of writing which was half-baked.