12 September,2026 08:25 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from ‘Haiwaan’. Pic/By Special Arrangement
There's a high-profile killing in Haiwaan, plus a child-hunt of sorts. Motives for both border on the absurd. As does the murderer's modus operandi, let alone the weak police procedural that follows. The movie itself, though, feels much stronger.
And this has everything to do with the fact that this mainstream neo-noir is shot with care, with convincing actors, who seem to take the script more seriously than the audience, otherwise, would.
If not, for the most part, like me, you'd wonder, when does the picture actually start - while it's been almost an hour into the plot. As in?
Well, obviously, all stories have a beginning, middle, and end; academically termed the three-act structure. The way I see films, for instance, is a bit like the delivery in cricket.
The run-up is obviously the beginning - up until the ball hits the bat, which is the middle. From here on, you head to the end, depending on where the ball goes, before it becomes dead.
The story is complete. Technically, you can draw this analogy with every movie you watch. Thank me later.
Consider this pic then, where the run-up begins all the way from the stands. The random opening shot is that of Akshay Kumar, who must appear at the beginning, for he doesn't, for two-thirds of the pic, thereafter.
Acting wise, this is a Saif space: Haiwaan's lead, through and through, since you must know, is Saif Ali Khan.
He plays a blind man. There is no mystery to it. Still, a doubt gets introduced: what if he's not blind a' la Andhadhun. He has a family in rural Maharashtra, with his sister getting married, mom alive, and their home that's mortgaged.
Likewise, he seems to have some sorta surrogate family back in Mumbai, where he works as a building manager, with one of the occupants (Boman Irani) being that benefactor of sorts, as it were; it's hard to tell.
Plus, a child at a boarding school, who, apparently, belongs to Boman's character that the lead spends time with as well.
There's something going between a young couple found making out in an empty apartment, and the residents must decide what must be done to them - for, what's the urban equivalent of a khap panchayat, but a management committee of a building, that's called the society in Mumbai, isn't it?
Also, something on the marital life of a house-help here that Saif's character appears to be involved with as well.
No, seriously: I could just go on typing. The point is that none of these elaborate intros for a run-up, or peripherals for the background, add anything to the lead characters, or the main story, once it sets in. To the extent that you've even forgotten why you're watching this film, in the first place.
Which is that, at some point, there's a death (Boman). There's the killer (Akshay). And an eye-witness (Saif), who's blind.
Perfectly fine short film, with a super action sequence, between Akshay and Saif, jostling after the said crime. It's been "filmed by Priyadarshan" - as the director prefers his credits, including on posters.
In case you're too young to know, writer-director Priyadarshan happens to be one of India's most productive filmmakers. There was a point in the 2000s, he'd casually flip between Bollywood's top movie stars, every other weekend, simply remaking Malayalam movies into Hindi, most of them his own.
Hence, he also ran his own repertory company of side-characters in Mumbai, recurrently employing the likes of Rajpal Yadav, late Asrani.
So with Haiwaan. It's seemingly copy-pasted from Priyadarshan's Oppam (2016), I'm told, based on a short story by Govind Vijayan, recommended by Mohanlal, who played the lead in the original.
No doubt, this Malayalam-to-Hindi-movies as Priyan Sir's popular scheme has resulted in some remarkable works in the earlier decades; notably, Gardish (1993), more so Virasat (1997, adapted from Tamil).
Here's what's changed since. Firstly, the best of Malayalam movies have leaped into legit world cinema. Two, the original films already exist online, even in their Hindi dubs, sometimes; as does Oppam, that I'm not gonna bother with, after this.
That said, what remains the same is the quality of performance. In this case, Saif playing the equivalent of Mohanlal - drawing you in with his spot-on mannerisms of a blind man, for an action-thriller, rather than caring too much about getting into nuances of a Maharashtrian bloke in the same role.
This is perhaps Saif's first theatrical release since the ill-fated Adipurush (2023). He remains still the most underrated among the star Khans at the Bollywood box-office. But that, of course, is a function of footfalls, as it were. You wish the film well, then; don't you, always, anyway!
