Review of Haider (2014) by Rajan A — 01 Oct 2014

Haider.

A Great movie with all crooked characters.

Haider is an adoption of Shakespeare's coveted play Hamlet. Now, I haven't read any Shakespearean stuff for the simple reason that I won't be able to comprehend that dude. But every time I watch Vishal Bharadwaj adopt his plays into a spiced up Bollywood movie, in a language that mere mortals like me can understand, I get a pretty good taste of his brilliancy. If Maqbool and Omkara made me sit back and pay attention for Shakespeare, With Haider, I finally came to realize why Shakespeare is regarded as such a dude. Now, I claim to be a Shakespeare fan, without ever reading a single line of his work.

Set in Chaotic Kashmir of mid 90's, the movie has tragedy written all over it, right from scene one. Like every other movie that is made in Kashmir, Haider has terrorism and separatist movement at it's backdrop. But unlike every other movie made in Kashmir, the movie has no hint of patriotism whatsoever. Infact, its a story of the other half. So some parts of the movie may not appeal to you if you are the likes of those who are easily raged by stuff like Bilawal Bhutto's dimwittedness.

You get to know what the movie is all about in the first 30 minutes. What follows is the unfolding of the complexities of the characters involved. While, it doesn't make to too difficult for you to take sides with, it does make you empathize with the wrongs of the characters. A coming of age movie for Shahid Kapoor and a movie that yet again proves such a good actor Tabu is. The movie belongs to both of them completely. Shahid comes out real good in quiet a few scenes. Kay Kay Menon is back at doing stuffs that he is good at, being a great badass. Irrfan Khan is delightful in his short role and do makes his presence felt. Shrradha Kapoor is lovable. And there are two other lovable characters who create those only few lighter movements of the movie.

At 2 hrs and 42 minutes, the movie does test your patience at places. On top of that, the screen where I watched it included 4 trailers of Hindi movies starting with SRK's all glossy Happy New Year and 2 trailers of English movies as part of the theatrical release of the movie. So yeah, I did run out of my not so buttery butter popcorns even before Shahid's appearance on screen. They could have done away with 10-15 minutes to make it more appealing.

A movie worth watching for many a things, in spite of its flaws. Like other Shakespearean adoptions this one too is a movie with all messed up characters. So don't be surprised if you hear all the audiences including you gasp "Holy Shit" as the end credits roll.