Haiwaan review: Akshay Kumar-Saif Ali Khan's thriller takes too long to thrill

Priyadarshan making a Hindi thriller with Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan, based on his own 2016 Malayalam hit Oppam, looked like a safe bet on paper. He knows the material better than anyone, having made the original. Akshay Kumar has worked with him before. The reunion of Akshay and Saif Ali Khan alone was enough to get people interested. And yet, somewhere between the tattooed villain and the 165-minute runtime, Haiwaan fumbles what should have been a straightforward win.

The film opens with a man drowning someone in a river - a villain announced by his snake tattoo and his general air of menace. Then we shift to a village, where we meet Shyam Rane (Saif Ali Khan), a visually impaired man who has raised his siblings after their father's early death. He has an extraordinary sense of smell, sound and touch, and works as a maintenance manager at a high-rise building in Mumbai where, between the residents and the staff, practically the entire building depends on him.

Into this world arrives Parshuram Gokhale, a man with a history, a vendetta and a body count. The film, by retired judge Pradhan, played Boman Irani, lays out his backstory carefully: a family destroyed by a false accusation, a father who poisoned his entire household before dying by suicide, and a son who walked out of a mental hospital with nothing left to lose. Shyam, entirely without meaning to, finds himself caught between this man and the people he is trying to protect.

It is a solid premise. Oppam proved it works. The question was always going to be what Haiwaan adds to it and the honest answer is: not quite enough.

The pace is a big problem. The writers take considerable time getting to the point. There are three songs, none of which will stay with you past the end credits. A wedding celebration throws in a dance number just before an important sequence. By the time the actual thriller kicks in, you have already spent a lot of patience getting there.

Priyadarshan has always had a gift for comedy, and there are scattered moments here that land. Sharib Hashmi as inspector Sanjay Shinde is genuinely funny and one of the film's more reliable pleasures. But the comedy and the thriller are not quite speaking to each other here, and the laughs arrive at moments when the film really should be tightening its grip.

At two hours and 45 minutes, Haiwaan is at least 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. The story is there. It simply takes too long to tell it.

Saif Ali Khan is good as Shyam, bringing warmth to a character defined by his responsibility towards his family and the goodwill he has earned in his building. You believe him as Shyam the person, but the wrestler Shyam is harder to buy. The Nawab of Pataudi doesn't entirely sell the physicality the role demands. It is not a deal-breaker, but it is noticeable. Shyam could have been more rustic.

Here is the central issue. Haiwaan's villain needed to be genuinely frightening — the kind of threat that makes you understand why an entire film has been built around stopping him. Akshay Kumar has played antagonists before and done it well. But the Haiwaan on screen is not haiwaaning enough. This Haiwaan is not beast enough. The performance leans into over-the-top in a way that tips occasionally into unintentional comedy rather than dread. The final sequence, in particular, which should have been the film's most tense passage, lands differently than intended.

It is a difficult thing to say about an actor of Akshay's calibre in a film he has clearly committed to. But the menace needed to be colder, quieter, more unsettling - and it isn't.

The ensemble saves it, partly. The late Asrani appears as security guard Hussain, and the performance is a small treasure — warm, funny, entirely real. It is a reminder of what a career the man had. Boman Irani is dependable as ever, while Sharib Hashmi is the film's most consistent source of entertainment, even if his cop's casual resort to police brutality is hardly admirable.

Shriya Pilgaonkar and Saiyami Kher are both given less to do than their talent warrants, which is a pattern that Indian thrillers keep repeating and never seem to learn from.

And then there is Mohanlal, who starred in the original Oppam, making a cameo in the Hindi adaptation, even if the scene itself is brief.

A word of advice, if you have seen Oppam, there is not a great deal here that will surprise you, and the comparison will not work in Haiwaan's favour. Mohanlal's original is tighter, leaner and more consistently gripping. If you haven't seen Oppam, that might actually be the better version to watch first, or instead.

Haiwaan is not a bad film. It has a good cast, a workable story, with splashes of comedy and a director who knows this material. It is simply a film that needed someone to make it tighter and cut it down to the thriller it could have been, rather than the occasionally enjoyable, ultimately unsatisfying version that has made it to screen.- EndsPublished By: shweta keshriPublished On: Sep 11, 2026 10:00 ISTALSO READ | Akshay-Saif's 32-year game: Hits, flops and one Haiwaan of a pairing