Arnab Banerjee reviews Haiwaan, Priyadarshan’s remake of Oppam, arguing that an intriguing psychological thriller is overwhelmed by Akshay Kumar’s star persona, implausible action, and a screenplay that sacrifices restraint for spectacle.

Director: Priyadarshan

Screenplay: Rohan Shankar, Abilash Nair, Priyadarshan

Based on: Oppam by Priyadarshan

Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar, Boman Irani, Saiyami Kher, Shriya Pilgaonkar

Cinematography: Divakar Mani

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

The Star Over the Story: How Akshay Kumar Drowns Haiwaan: Some thrillers are so absorbing that they persuade us to surrender logic at the door and simply follow the action wherever it takes us. A good mystery, particularly one built around a cat-and-mouse chase, can make even the most improbable turn feel plausible because the characters, the atmosphere, and the suspense are persuasive enough to keep disbelief suspended.

A Promising Premise Lost

Haiwaan begins with precisely that promise — a potentially engrossing tale of guilt, vengeance, betrayal, and retribution, populated by characters whose secrets could have sustained a gripping psychological thriller. Instead, Priyadarshan’s remake of his own 2016 Malayalam film Oppam gradually loses sight of the thriller it could have been, drowning a promising premise in star power, implausible action, and a screenplay that repeatedly mistakes excess for excitement.

Co-written and directed by Priyadarshan and produced by KVN Productions and Thespian Films, Haiwaan features Saif Ali Khan, Akshay Kumar, Boman Irani, Shriya Pilgaonkar, and Saiyami Kher, with Mohanlal making a cameo appearance. It also has the distinction of being the final screen appearance of Asrani, who passed away in October 2025.

The Mystery That Almost Works

The basic premise is sound. Shyam (Saif Ali Khan), a blind man with an extraordinary range of abilities, lives in a building supervised by him. When his neighbour Pradhan (Boman Irani), a retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, begins to fear a man he once convicted, Shyam offers to help. That man is Parshuram (Akshay Kumar), who is systematically eliminating people connected to his imprisonment. Police Inspector Varsha (Saiyami Kher) is gradually able to link the seemingly unrelated murders.

There is enough material here for a taut, atmospheric thriller. Instead, Haiwaan seems determined to keep reminding us that Akshay Kumar is, well, Akshay Kumar.

The Blind Hero as Superhuman

Shyam is the sort of blind protagonist that only cinema could invent. He cannot see, but apparently sight is the least of his concerns. He can wrestle, play musical instruments, teach them, sing, write lyrics, dance, and detect things through smell with the precision of a forensic laboratory. His blindness is less a disability than a cinematic superpower. One half expects him to announce that he can also land a helicopter by listening to its engine.

Saif Ali Khan plays the part with sincerity, but sincerity can only go so far when the screenplay keeps piling improbable abilities onto the character. The actor brings a certain vulnerability to Shyam, yet the role increasingly demands physical heroics and exaggerated resourcefulness rather than the subtle observational intelligence that could have made the character compelling. The result is a performance constantly fighting the screenplay instead of being supported by it.

Boman Irani fares considerably better. Pradhan is burdened by a secret and haunted by the consequences of a judicial decision, giving Irani something resembling an actual character arc to work with. He brings the required gravitas and moral unease without overplaying either. For stretches of the first half, his performance provides the film with the emotional centre it badly needs.

When Action Replaces Logic

The problem is that Haiwaan soon becomes less interested in conscience than in choreography.

As the investigation proceeds, the film introduces a parade of people, red herrings, and suspicious circumstances, presumably to keep us guessing. For a while, it works. The mystery acquires some texture; the identities and motives remain sufficiently murky; and the promise of a satisfying revelation keeps us invested. Then the film starts treating logic as an optional extra.

Consider the action sequences. How many policemen does it take to overpower a blind man who has already been strung up and beaten mercilessly? In Haiwaan, the answer appears to be: however many the screenplay requires, and preferably four very large ones. Yet even they are no match for him. In a confined room, the battered Shyam proceeds to dispatch them with the efficiency of a professional combatant, leaving the men in a bloody heap.

At that point, the film seems almost to challenge the audience: Are you still willing to suspend disbelief?

Of course we are. This is a Hindi film thriller. We have accepted flying cars, invincible heroes, and villains who survive explosions that would rearrange the molecular structure of ordinary human beings. But suspension of disbelief is not a licence for the screenplay to suspend causality altogether.

Akshay Kumar’s Star Persona Wins

Akshay Kumar’s Parshuram is potentially the film’s most interesting character because he operates in that tantalising space between victimhood and villainy. Unfortunately, the film appears so invested in preserving the aura of its leading man that the character is rarely allowed to become genuinely disturbing. Kumar attacks the role with his customary physical commitment, but the performance is so heavily surrounded by the machinery of the star persona that Parshuram never acquires the psychological menace the story demands. We see the actor, seldom feeling the character’s darkness. That distinction matters.

A revenge thriller needs its antagonist to make us uncomfortable. We should understand his rage without necessarily condoning it. We should feel the weight of what he has suffered while remaining appalled by what he does with that suffering. Haiwaan repeatedly approaches that moral complexity and then retreats into spectacle.

Saiyami Kher and Shriya Pilgaonkar, meanwhile, are given material that feels frustratingly undernourished. The screenplay has little interest in giving them enough psychological space to create fully realised characters. And that, ultimately, is Haiwaan’s central failure.

A Thriller Without Restraint

The film has a terrific foundation: a blind man who becomes an unlikely witness, a judge haunted by his past, a vengeful convict systematically settling scores, and a police officer trying to connect the dots before more people die. There is injustice, betrayal, guilt, revenge, and mystery — virtually all the ingredients of a compelling thriller. What is missing is restraint.

Priyadarshan knows how to construct a thriller, but Haiwaan repeatedly chooses the loudest possible solution. Whenever the narrative could pause and explore character, it accelerates into action. Whenever it could deepen the moral dilemma, it introduces another twist. Whenever it could trust the audience, it underlines the point with another set-piece.

The irony is that the film does not lack ambition. It lacks discipline. By the time the mystery unravels, the question is no longer simply who did it? It becomes how much more are we expected to overlook?

The Final Verdict

Haiwaan becomes a prolonged demonstration of how a perfectly serviceable mystery can be overwhelmed by star worship, increasingly elastic logic, and action sequences that seem to exist principally to remind us that heroes in Hindi cinema are rarely required to obey the laws of human physiology.

There is a good thriller somewhere inside Haiwaan. Unfortunately, it spends most of the film trying to escape.