Shaitan: is a stylish & captivating film !!

Rating: 3.5/5

Anurag Kashyap’s new venture ‘Shaitan’ pretends to stand tall on 3 pillars; blistering cinematography, awkwardly marvelous soundtrack & roaring Rajeev Khandelwal.

They make cheap comments on each other’s mothers’ appearances, one night stand is not a new thing for them and alcohol & drugs are like oxygen to them. These are the central characters of debutant film maker Bejoy Nambiar’s ‘Shaitan’ who don’t have anything to fight for in their life until the day when one of them after racing with Audi on streets of Mumbai hits his shining yellow Hummer to a scooter which kills 2 innocent persons riding it. All the five were seated in a car while this accident occurred so they decide to tackle it together. And in the process, their friendship’s strongest strength of having trust on each other slowly and steadily gets weaker and weaker as their plan of getting money to shut the case goes shockingly wrong.  

Story makes sense not just because of the fact that it reminds us what Salman Khan did many years ago, but because we often read in newspapers about kids driving their cars/bikes irresponsibly and wildly imaginatively (in some cases). For those of you who loved Dev D’s stunning cinematography, there’s particularly no reason to dislike this film as this film has a lot to offer in terms of cinematography. Some of the sequences are so impressively shot that it reminded me of Zack Snyder, who uses such tool in his film on regular basis. Gun fight featured with khoya khoya chand remix in background and fareeda - the song,  are the crux of this film which are so sensationally filmed that it might encourage you to watch this film second time.    

Tag of *angry young man* should now be passed on to Rajeev Khandelwal, he deserves it. Foot chase sequence is like trademark for Rajeev Khandelwal. His tough looks as honest and frustrated cop, merciless kick-punches and acting are superb. I wanted to see more of him, but I guess Bejoy and me don’t possess same mentality.    

Kalki Koechlin (as Amy), Gulshan Devaiya (KC), Shiv Pandit (Dash), Neil Bhoopalam (Zubin), Kirti Kulhari (as Tanya) & Rajat Barmecha as Shomu (in a cameo) have done a fair job. All the five share equal screen presence. Alike Anurag Kashyap’s previous films, Shaitan’s music is also remarkable. It is undeniably this year’s best soundtrack so far.

Only hindrance in the film which made me yawn was Kalki going again and again into flashback without any valid reason, else everything was fine, fancy & fabulous.    


This post is an entry to the Reel-Life Bloggers contest organized by wogma.com and reviewgang.com