Shaitan Hindi Movie 2011 Reviews

Recently watched the critically acclaimed Hindi film Shaitan which was released on June 10, 2011. The film starts with the mentally disturbed girl Amruta Jaishankar – Amy (Kalki Koechlin) who is having visions of her mother with herself in a bathtub, about to shrink Amy and herself. Her father (Rajit Kapoor) tried all to get her cured without luck so far. She have tried committing suicide and having instanced her mother in herself. As the last step he is trying to shift all his business from L.A. to Mumbai. Amy is not on good terms with her step mother who is actually understanding and genuine.

Arvind Mathur (Rajeev Khandelwal) is a hot tempered police inspector who was brutal to the criminals and found hot headed most of the time. In one event her newly wedded wife (it was a love merriage) tried teasing him, he goes out of control, which took their merriage at place from where divorce is the next point.

Amy meets KC (Gulshan Devaiya) and his gang his gang – Dash (Shiv Pandit), Zubin (Neil Bhoopalam) and Tanya (Kirti Kulhari). They all lead to a directionless life where they do nothing but partying out, using drugs, drinking a lot and driving around in a Hummer. On one occassion they run over 2 people on the scooter leading to their deaths. A greedy cop who was the investigating officer of the case trace them out and demands 25 lac rupees as bribe to settle the things. As they found no way to arrange so much money, they plan to kidnap Amy and demand the money from her father. They all goes to the hide out and supported by Amy the plan was executed as decided.

Amy’s father goes to the police and based on the relations he have in the government the commissioner of police (Pavan Malhotra) was under pressure to resolve the stuff asap. He unofficially appoints suspended cop Mathur to the case who was in the procedure to get divorced. The event of Amy’s kidnapping quickly turns into a media circus, which puts pressure on the youngsters who go on a gruesome and disturbing killing spree. KC kills a man who attempts to rape Tanya and in the meanwhile police solves another case involving kidnapping of a German girl while searching for Amy.

The inner devil (Shaitan) was present in all them. What would be the fate? Will Mathur be able to resolve the case? Will the parents of all the youth ever know the truth that Amy (and others) were not actually kidnapped but was a plan by all the friends to get money from Mr. Jaishankar?

Overall the movie is exploring some of the not-previously-visited stuff in terms of Bollywood. Now a days the abusive language is part of most of the films which makes them not watchable with family. Rajeev Khandelval delivers a nice performace and Shiv Pandit is also competent. Rajit Kapoor is nice. Overall all the performances are applaudable including convincing Pavan Malhotra. There is nothing in the music which is worth mention. Kalki’s character was not well written and you find it with some other characters also, but as mentioned, performances of the lead overcomes writing problem. You can think going with mature friends only to watch the movie once, if you will not, you didn’t loose anything. Director Bijoy Nambiar was an assistant of Mani Ratnam in Guru and he may deliver better movies in the future.