Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan is a shoddy remake of Anurag Kashyap’s unreleased cult classic Paanch. Shaitan attempts to retell the story cleverly but becomes a tedious watch because of several flaws. Shaitaan wastes too much time trying to establish the characters and get into the story – a bunch of hyperactive kids befriend a troubled girl (Kalki Koechlin), loot a chemist store for drugs to get high on because it’s too late to buy booze, and run over a couple of people with their Hummer. To bribe a cop to cover the matter, they fake a kidnapping and end up killing a few more people in fits of rage.
The story plods on and on with the hyperactive kids behaving like retards; acting decently at times but mostly hamming. Rajeev Khandelwal stands out with his performance as a stern cop with marital problems to deal with, and even with the overexcited college idiots and several other unrequired characters and the overweight story, he is effective.
The music of Shaitan is a mixed bag that lasts only as long as the film; thinking about it on the way back home made me sing all the songs from Paanch, so I don’t even need to say more about it.
It’s a tragedy that one of the reasons Paanch was banned is because it showed the use of drugs, and even more so because Shaitan has unnecessary scenes of drug use. Drugs and alcohol did not even need to be a part of this already crammed story. Shaitan is jam-packed with ideas it did not need.
Shaitan‘s greatest weaknesses are 1) Zero chemistry between the friends – they seem like a bunch of junior college kids thrown together. 2) Kalki didn’t need to have a loony mother who looks like the girl from The Ring. The wannabe evil/psychotic ‘twist’ in the end is just laughable.
Anurag Kashyap’s Paanch took a long time to establish the characters and tell the story, but the actors were so talented and the screenplay so intriguing that you were sucked right into the film. Shaitan is high on appeal but neither the story nor the characters are able to make a connection with the viewer.
Not a patch on Paanch.
RATING: 2.5/5
paanch sucks.
+1 Aditya! Paanch was soo much better. And I have always hated rich brats for some reason. I’d say it was a tryhard movie for tryhard idiots.
I agree Aditya…well no where near Paanch this one! None of the characters in Shaitan get one’s sympathy…Kalki (extra footage given to her..why bec she is producer’s wife?) irritates so much that u actually wish some one shoots her first! But film has been stylishly shot..the much talked about Khoya Khoya Chand sequence is lifted from N number of Korean present generation action movies and also reminds of Taken (Extended Unrated Version) when Liam Neeson goes to the brothel meant for construction workers…Why such a fucked up climax?????
Agreed. Was totally mediocre. 2.5/5 just about seems right. Also agreed with Abhijit’s comment above. Kalki has shown absolutely no skills in acting in this movie and just comes across as a stereotypical character. I think Rajeev Khandelwal was the best
Agree. The film was disappointingly bad. I thought it would hold till intermission and then collapse but it died from the first wannabe American-asylum scene. Most entertaining part of the film was A Kashyap’s stoned warning at the beginning of the film. I cannot comprehend how people “like” it or maybe I underestimate the market for wannabes who want to seem cool.
“A Kashyap’s stoned warning” – that’s priceless!
He really looked blazed.
Shaitan was a waste of time and gave me a headache.