Haiwaan movie review: Akshay Kumar-Saif Ali Khan film is more uff than ole ole - The Indian Express
Haiwaan movie review: Haiwaan vs Insaan, monster vs human, that age-old conflict in the movies, gets a refresh in Haiwaan, with Priyadarshan re-upping his own 2016 Malayalam hit Oppam. Here Saif Ali Khan plays the sightless Shyam, up against Akshay Kumar’s murderous Parshuram, in a film which stays largely faithful to the original.
In Priyan’s world protagonists and antagonists are always arrayed in black and white, with lashes of heavy-handed humour thrown in. The mix works in some of his movies, mostly his loud comedies in which the cast is tasked with delivering dialogues when not hanging off cliffs: Haiwaan is the usual mix of genres in Priyadarshan’s films, in which tonal switches abound, the first half setting up the premise of an innocent man being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t do, and the second turning into an unintentional comic police procedural.
How many cops does it take to overcome a blind man? Four burly men launch themselves at a man who’s been strung up and beaten mercilessly, and yet the latter is able to deal with them in a closed room, leaving them in a bloody heap. Yes, it’s a Bollywood movie, and yes, we know how to suspend disbelief, but seriously?
This was meant to be a much-awaited reunion of our Khiladi boys, Akshay and Saif, who’ve long been partners on film sets. Saif has the more expansive role — his Shyam can play all kinds of musical instruments, from the guitar to the violin to the piano, he can tap about with his cane playing quasi-daddy to a little girl, and he can beat baddies into a pulp — with Akshay showing up to skulk and slit throats, but neither is believable.
The first half gives Boman Irani’s conscience-stricken judge a chance to anchor the proceedings, and he does that well enough, letting Shyam in on a secret which has been weighing him down. As the supervisor of the building the judge lives in, Shyam knows each nook and corner, his sense of smell outweighing his inability to see, leading him to be an unlikely witness in a murder.
Subplots involve a domestic help (Shriya Pilgaonkar) saddled with an abusive husband and a brother in hiding. Said help suddenly comes on all heavy with Shyam, giving us a taste of this harum-scarum script where anything goes — from a too-handy-with-his-fists policeman (Sharib Hashmi), an ever-present autorickshaw driver (Rajpal Yadav), a smart cop (Saiyami Kher) whose sleuthing instincts find little play, and a grim-faced nun (Suchitra Pillai) presiding over a boarding school.
When Priyadarshan is on top of his game, all his madly-disparate moving parts somehow come together and give us a rumbustious climax. Sadly, Haiwaan is more miss than hit, more uff uff than ole ole.
