Let's be realistic.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Haider- 2014 Director: Vishal BhardwajRadical Indian version of Hamlet gives the story compelling political angles and musical surprises. Vishal Bhardwaj is Bollywood's go-to guy for Shakespeare updates, having turned Macbeth into Maqbool (2003) and Othello into Omkara (2006). Here, he relocates Hamlet to chilly, militarised mid-90s Kashmir, with a hero Shahid Kapoor.Shahid delivered his career's best knock-out. He just NAILED it. Shahid Kapoor acts his heart out in a career-redefining performance that will certainly vanquish the Ghosts of R..Rajkumars Past, while Tabu's performance was mesmerizing. It should get the Film of the year award-2014.

I'm not a huge fan of Bollywood, except when I'm really forced to watch something. Haider was one of them. Yesterday I watched Haider and I really thought its a film lost in its narrative, a film not clear with its motive. Here are some of my points why I didn't like the film the way everyone's been raving about.1. Overly long film, could have easily edited the part about love story, why the hell would one like to listen to a song where the hero who was just in a maniacal depression due to his father's death, dance stupidly around trees for love, loses the credibility of the whole flow. The scene about he going around searching for his father with flyers is unnecessarily long and over dramatic. The song sequence in Kay Kay and Tabu's marriage was another commercial trapping for a realistic film as this one could have been.2. What was the purpose of the speech that he gave in the middle of the road? The speech seemed like the director deliberately inserted to have a solid impression of Shahid's acting otherwise around 100's of people listening so quietly to a layman is a another Bollywood style where the actor is actually the hero, no matter what.3. The film has many commercial trappings like the time when he's about to kill Kay Kay Menon and the police come at the exact right time and spot, the police spots him in the fire torn building when he's about to cross border at the exact right time and spot. Funnily a country where the police is never on time here co-incidences lead them to them to the points without any prior information.4. Why did Kay Kay not have him caught while he was singing the song and dancing, may be he was mesmerized like everyone else by his moves.The only thing good about the film is Pankaj's Cinematography and Tabu's acting.

Rather hard-hitting, but lacks the uniform macabre of Vishal Bhardwaj​'s previous two adaptations of William Shakespeare​'s dramas (especially "Omkara"). Even its grandeur of screen writing and production design over the conflict striven Kashmir, couldn't engage it enough into becoming an eventual let down. Hauntingly mellifluous music by Bhardwaj, and so-far career best by Shahid Kapoor, and a sublime Tabu​ are embellishments to an otherwise lackluster production. The film is surreal on several occasions, and even uses its cast and plot quite ably, but loses track on the attempt of becoming too-much- of-everything. A reluctant 7/10.

Chutzpah happens when an incredible film receives 1/4th box office collections compared to another film releasing the same day, after being snubbed by critics all over the nation. Haider set in the insurgent Kashmir valley is based on Shakespearian play Hamlet, completing a trilogy by Vishal Bharadwaj after Maqbool and Omkara. It's a story about thousands of Kashmiris getting "disappeared" under the pre-text of AFSPA. The entire plot is very intricate, deep and intense comprising Haider's (played by Shahid Kapur) quest to find his disappeared father and bring the perpetrators to justice. With a brilliant cast and screenplay, Vishal Bharadwaj mesmerizes the audience with his allegorical references like the unpredictable nature of woman, dichotomy between righteousness and being wronged, "Hum hai ki hum nahi hai" reflecting Kashmir's separatist demand (Kashmir is in fact a character itself), etc. Also movie contains tiny visual character references like Tabu's (mother of Haider) mehndi being prominently displayed multiple times to perhaps indicate her serial widowhood, Haider's wounded eye to perhaps imply his inability to judge the right from the wrong, etc. The beauty of the movie is its unpredictable climax which develops out of a prolonged suspense. Haider is a masterpiece and must watch for quality cinema lovers.