The writer of Sultan repeatedly evokes a beast of burden by way of an analogy for the film's simple-minded but irrepressible protagonist.
This guy, Sultan Ali Khan of Rewari district's Buroli village, is indeed a cussed customer who soldiers on against all odds to prove his worth to himself, his girlfriend/wife and the whole wide world. So, what's new? What's new is that Sultan casts Salman Khan as a rugged son-of-the-soil wrestler who weathers many a deadly blow on his heart and his body.
When the chips are down, Sultan's wife Aarfa(Anushka Sharma), a fellow wrestler and daughter of his first coach Barkat Hussain(Kumud Mishra), reminds him: "We are sportsmen, we never give up." This film takes the dictum a bit too literally. It refuses to give up - it goes on and on to drive home the point about the greatness of its ageing grappler-hero.
In one early scene, the wheel of a tractor gets stuck in a deep puddle outside the office where retired Olympic and world champion Sultan does a lowly clerical job.
The hero is summoned to the spot and he pulls the vehicle out without batting an eyelid. That is where his correlation to a bull begins.
Sports entrepreneur Akash Oberoi(Amit Sadh), owner of the wrestling franchise Pro Take-Down who has arrived from Delhi, is impressed enough with the deed to rope in Sultan as the floundering event's only Indian fighter.
At another point, having decided to become a wrestled to prove the doubting heroine wrong, Sultan yokes himself to a plough and tills a plot of land.
It is a part of a punishing training regimen that includes trying to outrun a diesel locomotive. There are no half measures for this bloke.
Later, when he is on the comeback trail after a self-imposed hiatus, Sultan's MMA coach Fateh Singh(Randeep Hooda) advises him to aspire to be an "unbreakable bull". When Sultan does become one, the coach exults: "Poora saand(bull) hai."
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