Film: Shaitan (A)
Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal, Kalki Koechlin, Shiv Pandit, Gulshan Devaiya, KC, Kirti Kulhari, Neil Bhoopalam, Raj Kumar Yadav
Director: Bejoy Nambiar
Rating: ***1/2
Picture this. A visibly disturbed mother banging her head against the glass walls of a mental asylum with an equally flustered 3-year-old longing for her affection.
Cut to a group of friends playing Holi, neither impressed nor affected by the new addition, a 17-year-old US ‘Hollywood’ return, even while they preach to her about “bharosa” in their clique.
Cut to a cop whose temper often gets him on the wrong side of law.
Now cut to the brooding cop abandoning the call of duty to make sure his estranged wife is okay. That’s how all over the place and edgy Shaitan is. It only gets darker and murkier as the five friends KC (Devaiya), Dash (Pandit), Amy (Koechlin), Tanya (Kulhari) and Zubin (Bhoopalam) are caught in a mess they have created after a night of cocaine snorting and Hummer speeding. Debutant director Bejoy Nambiar seems to have closely studied the Alistair Pereira hit-and-run and Adnan Patrawala kidnap-and-murder cases.
An accident, a corrupt cop, a starved media and lots of desperation are the cornerstones of Shaitan. What’s worth talking about the Anurag Kashyap-backed film is how technical elements like camerawork, sound, dialogue and editing add value to the unfolding camaraderie between characters engineered by the story.
The colours are deep, the lighting shifts gears without jerks as moods change, and the camera angles make you go ‘Whoa! How did he shoot that?’ While showcasing editing prowess, however, the writing takes a beating with most intended jokes falling flat solely because they are old and worn out. The slow-motion technique is put to good use, with fight sequences standing out from run-of-the-mill ones in which the hero beats up the villain and the villain dies.
The fight sequence with ‘Khoya Khoya Chand’ (a new rendition of Mohd Rafi’s Kala Bazaar classic) in the background and Rajat Barmecha's 'flashback mein flashback' cameo are particularly memorable.
With such perfect casting, Nambiar enjoys full freedom of expression as his actors deliver performances for which they will be remembered forever. Khandelwal, Koechlin, Pandit, Devaiya, Kulhari, Bhoopalam, and Yadav do full justice as their characters all fight their own "inner demons”.
While most of Shaitan is acceptable as is, the film is not without its shortcomings. The graph of Nambiar’s screenplay, co-written by Megha Ramaswamy, is fighting a demon of its own, oscillating between the agile and the puerile. The parallel story of cop Arvind Mathur (Khandelwal) tends to slow down the film. The idealistic end doesn’t go down well too either.
With the kind of youth-centric films that have released in recent months (Luv Ka The End, Pyar Ka Punchnama), Shaitanoffers a compellingly riveting change. Slick editing (slightly overdone with the intention, probably, to stand out in a crowd of formulaic films) and conversational dialogue add to its credibility.
With songs like ‘Bali — The Sound of Shaitan’ and ‘Nasha’, sound design is stylish and fresh at the same time. The tunes resonate in your head long after you have left the cinema hall. Kunal Sharma, you can take a bow, for your work more than makes up for the few flaws Nambiar should have been worried about.
Anurag Kashyap has brought to the table, yet again, new talent, this time a pole apart from his last production, Udaan.
In an interview with DNA, Nambiar said that alternative films like his need a voice so more filmmakers come ahead with such stories. With the entertainment and cinematic value of this scale, we are not complaining.
Watch Shaitan for its original story and the talent showcased by the cast and sound and editing teams. It might be one of the most technically sound films you will have seen in a long time.
Cast: Rajeev Khandelwal, Kalki Koechlin, Shiv Pandit, Gulshan Devaiya, KC, Kirti Kulhari, Neil Bhoopalam, Raj Kumar Yadav
Director: Bejoy Nambiar
Rating: ***1/2
Picture this. A visibly disturbed mother banging her head against the glass walls of a mental asylum with an equally flustered 3-year-old longing for her affection.
Cut to a group of friends playing Holi, neither impressed nor affected by the new addition, a 17-year-old US ‘Hollywood’ return, even while they preach to her about “bharosa” in their clique.
Cut to a cop whose temper often gets him on the wrong side of law.
Now cut to the brooding cop abandoning the call of duty to make sure his estranged wife is okay. That’s how all over the place and edgy Shaitan is. It only gets darker and murkier as the five friends KC (Devaiya), Dash (Pandit), Amy (Koechlin), Tanya (Kulhari) and Zubin (Bhoopalam) are caught in a mess they have created after a night of cocaine snorting and Hummer speeding. Debutant director Bejoy Nambiar seems to have closely studied the Alistair Pereira hit-and-run and Adnan Patrawala kidnap-and-murder cases.
An accident, a corrupt cop, a starved media and lots of desperation are the cornerstones of Shaitan. What’s worth talking about the Anurag Kashyap-backed film is how technical elements like camerawork, sound, dialogue and editing add value to the unfolding camaraderie between characters engineered by the story.
The colours are deep, the lighting shifts gears without jerks as moods change, and the camera angles make you go ‘Whoa! How did he shoot that?’ While showcasing editing prowess, however, the writing takes a beating with most intended jokes falling flat solely because they are old and worn out. The slow-motion technique is put to good use, with fight sequences standing out from run-of-the-mill ones in which the hero beats up the villain and the villain dies.
The fight sequence with ‘Khoya Khoya Chand’ (a new rendition of Mohd Rafi’s Kala Bazaar classic) in the background and Rajat Barmecha's 'flashback mein flashback' cameo are particularly memorable.
With such perfect casting, Nambiar enjoys full freedom of expression as his actors deliver performances for which they will be remembered forever. Khandelwal, Koechlin, Pandit, Devaiya, Kulhari, Bhoopalam, and Yadav do full justice as their characters all fight their own "inner demons”.
With the kind of youth-centric films that have released in recent months (Luv Ka The End, Pyar Ka Punchnama), Shaitanoffers a compellingly riveting change. Slick editing (slightly overdone with the intention, probably, to stand out in a crowd of formulaic films) and conversational dialogue add to its credibility.
With songs like ‘Bali — The Sound of Shaitan’ and ‘Nasha’, sound design is stylish and fresh at the same time. The tunes resonate in your head long after you have left the cinema hall. Kunal Sharma, you can take a bow, for your work more than makes up for the few flaws Nambiar should have been worried about.
Anurag Kashyap has brought to the table, yet again, new talent, this time a pole apart from his last production, Udaan.
In an interview with DNA, Nambiar said that alternative films like his need a voice so more filmmakers come ahead with such stories. With the entertainment and cinematic value of this scale, we are not complaining.
Watch Shaitan for its original story and the talent showcased by the cast and sound and editing teams. It might be one of the most technically sound films you will have seen in a long time.
