The film Ikka stars Sunny Deol as Arjun Mehra, an incorruptible defense lawyer lauded for his successes at trial — so much so that he’s garnered a nickname: Ikka, meaning he’s an ace. But Arjun’s track record is jeopardized when he’s forced to take on a client with whom he has a troubled past — a man accused of murder named Shauryaman, played by Dhurandhar’s Akshaye Khanna. Despite Arjun’s suspicion that Shauryaman is guilty, he’s determined to use every trick in the book to prove his client’s innocence. If he doesn’t, Arjun’s sick daughter will be the one who suffers. Will she survive if he makes a grave moral sacrifice? Does the right killer end up in prison? Keep reading to find out how Ikka ends. 

“Ikka is not just a courtroom drama. It is a story about family, relationships, and the difficult choices life forces you to make,” Deol tells Netflix. “Arjun is a man who believes in doing what is right, but circumstances push him to question everything around him. His pain, his anger, his silence, and his fight for what he believes in are what drew me to this character.” The legal drama directed by Siddharth P Malhotra (Maharaj) also stars Akshaye Khanna and Tillotama Shome. It was written by Althea Kaushal (Bestseller) and Mayank Tewari (Delhi Crime).

When will Ikka be released?

Stream it now.

Where can I find the trailer for Ikka?

Check it out at the top of this page. 

Who’s in the cast of Ikka? 

• Sunny Deol (Jaat) as Arjun Mehra
• Akshaye Khanna (Dhurandhar) as Shauryaman Gaur 
• Tillotama Shome (Tooth Pari: When Love Bites) as Madhura Banerjee
• Dia Mirza (Bheed) as Avantika Mehra
• Sanjeeda Shaikh (Heeramandi) as Gauri Gaur
• Shishir Sharma (Cobalt Blue) as Harshvardhan Gaur
• Akansha Ranjan Kapoor (Ray) as Soma Mittal
• Daria Bedi as Samaira Mehra

What happens in Ikka? 

When wealthy playboy Shauryaman Gaur, son of politician Harshvardhan Gaur (Sharma), stands accused of the attempted murder of 27-year-old Soma Mittal (Kapoor), Harshvardhan reaches out to attorney Arjun Mehra to defend his son. Arjun takes the meeting, but only so he can turn the Gaurs down face-to-face. Arjun and Shauryaman share a contentious professional and personal history, but more importantly, Arjun only takes cases of people he believes are innocent — and he knows in his heart Shauryaman is not. Harshvardhan, who’s up for reelection and needs to silence his son’s scandal quickly, begs him to reconsider, but Arjun holds firm.

After Arjun leaves the meeting, he learns that his daughter, Samaira (Bedi), is in the hospital because of a nosebleed during a school swim meet. The doctors tell Arjun and his devoted wife, Avantika (Mirza), that their daughter has advanced-stage leukemia, and the only thing that can save her is a stem cell transplant — if she gets it in the next few weeks. But neither parent is a donor match. Arjun, who isn’t Samaira’s biological father, attempts to strike a deal with the man who is: Shauryaman. Arjun agrees to defend him, provided Shauryaman donates his stem cells. Will Arjun be able to bend his morals long enough to save his daughter?

How does Ikka end?

As the trial begins, Shauryaman’s alleged victim, Soma (Kapoor), is in a coma after barely surviving a brutal jugular wound. Both Arjun and the leading prosecutor, Madhura Banerjee (Shome), establish the facts of the case. Arjun calls Shauryaman to the stand, who claims that, on the night in question, he went to the club to blow off steam, where he met Soma. After hitting it off, the pair left the club and headed to dinner. Shauryaman tried to kiss her in the car afterward, he says, but Soma refused his advance by attacking him, jumping out of the vehicle, and running away. He testifies that he wanted to find her and apologize, but drove home instead. Shauryaman says Soma must’ve been assaulted after they parted ways. His wife, Gauri (Shaikh), confirmed Shauryaman’s timeline in her statement to police. But other than his wife’s testimony — which doesn’t hold much weight with the court — Shauryaman has no alibi.

Madhura establishes a discrepancy in Shauryaman’s story when she calls Vijay Kamte (Francis Augustine), a tea vendor, to the stand. Vijay says that Soma didn’t run from the car — she was pushed out by the driver, who drove away and left her bleeding out. Afraid to call the police, Vijay also ran from the crime scene. Arjun quickly disassembles Vijay’s account when the vendor can’t say with certainty that Shauryaman was the driver. The defense attorney also establishes reasonable doubt by calling Soma’s jealous and possessive ex, Abhimanyu (Gurinder Singh), to the stand and exposing the threatening texts sent during their breakup. 

The next day, Madhura introduces a surprise witness: a forensic specialist who establishes that the attack weapon is Shauryaman’s car key. Despite the fact that the car was professionally cleaned with heavy-duty chemicals days after the incident, there was blood found inside the ignition that could have only gotten there if the key had been soaked. In fact, the sample taken from Shauryaman’s car matches Soma’s DNA. Caught off guard, Arjun asks for a recess and confronts his client, who maintains his innocence but admits to fighting back. Shauryaman threatens to fire Arjun if he can’t combat Madhura’s aggressive tactics in court, which would negate their deal to save Samaira. He also taunts Arjun with a reminder: Arjun’s the reason that Shauryaman was disbarred decades ago, causing Shauryaman to lose his career and his pregnant girlfriend — now Arjun’s current wife — at the same time. Arjun owes him, Shauryaman says, especially now that Shauryaman holds Samaira’s life in his hands.

Shaken by the encounter, Arjun brings in another forensic expert the following day, who argues that the DNA sample taken from the ignition was so small and corrupted that the original specialist had to do a different test — one that isn’t court-approved — in order to get a match.

While the trial continues, Soma succumbs to her injuries, which means the case has been upgraded from attempted murder to murder. Soma’s mother, Mrs. Mittal (Jyoti Mukerji), overwhelmed by the loss of her daughter, tells Madhura she has no hope that justice will be served. Elsewhere, Samaira lands back in the hospital after her condition worsens. 

Determined to convict Shauryaman after her conversation with Mrs. Mittal, Madhura’s team digs back into the case and finds a new witness, Sudhakar Pillai (Abhinav Grover), who lives in a hostel right around the corner from the crime scene. Sudhakar testifies that he saw Shauryaman buying a cell phone from an unhoused man, then making a call around 1:10 a.m. — proving that Shauryaman’s timeline is incorrect, and he wasn’t anywhere close to home when Soma was left for dead.

Desperate to dig up any alibi, Arjun talks to Gauri once more, and she reluctantly reveals that Shauryaman is physically abusive toward her. She had even called the police twice about it the night of the murder — once around 1 a.m. begging for help as a man can be heard screaming at her in the background, and once about 45 minutes later, to tell them to disregard the previous call. Though Arjun doesn’t have an eyewitness, he’s found something better — the recorded and time-stamped calls, which he plays in court the next day. With irrefutable proof that Shauryaman was home at the time of the murder, the judge declares him cleared of all charges, and Arjun wins the case. Both Mrs. Mittal and Madhura chastise him for defending a rich killer, but Arjun can only focus on his daughter. Shauryaman donates his stem cells as promised and invites Arjun out to the club to celebrate.

Does Shauryaman get away with murder?

At first, it seems like Soma’s murderer will go unpunished, but they don’t call Arjun “Ikka” for nothing. Arjun meets Shauryaman for a congratulatory drink as planned, but he has one last card to play: While examining Shauryaman’s wife’s calls to police, Arjun noticed something the judge didn’t catch — the male voice threatening Gauri in the first call was actually the Gaurs’ assistant, Chatur (Devendra Mishra), who hadn’t been seen during the last days of the trial. When Arjun’s team traced Chatur’s phone, they found that he was trying to leave the city after posing as Shauryaman on the emergency calls with Gauri (and stabbing the unhoused man from whom Shauryaman purchased a phone) — all of which he did on Shauryaman’s orders. After arresting Chatur in a seedier part of the city, police find the unhoused man in a local hospital, where he confirms that Chatur was his attacker and corroborates the hostel dweller Sudhakar’s timeline. 

Thanks to Arjun, Madhura and the police rearrest Shauryaman — now for two charges rather than one — and he’s led out of the club in cuffs.

Does Samaira live?

Yes, Samaira lives thanks to the stem cell donation from her biological father, Shauryaman. Arjun, Avantika, and Samaira can resume life as a happy family once again.

Fool Me Once, Mindhunter, and Other Twisted Crime Dramas to Stream Now