The film starts off with Amy, who is a mentally disturbed girl deeply affected by the attempted suicide and eventual institutionalization of her mother. She moves from Los Angeles to Mumbai, where she meets KC [Gulshan Devaiya]. KC introduces her to his gang - Dash [Shiv Pandit], Zubin [Neil Bhoopalam] and Tanya [Kirti Kulhari]. They lead the particularly directionless life of Indian youngsters, having fun drinking, using drugs and driving around in a Hummer and on one such occasion, they run over 2 people in a scooter. They quickly leave but are traced down by a slimy cop, who demands 25 lakhs to make the case go away. They hatch a plot to kidnap Amy, who volunteers to be kidnapped. The event quickly turns into a media circus, which puts pressure on the youngsters who go on a gruesome and disturbing killing spree. KC kills a man who attempts to rape Tanya, then nearly kills Tanya herself when he thinks she called the police, while she had actually called her sister. Zubin, who has feelings for Tanya, escapes from the group after seeing a bloodied, unconscious Tanya and is eventually arrested by the police. He confesses everything and the police trace down the slimy cop, who is nearly killed in the chase. Then police trace down Dash, KC and Amy to a church when KC had called his father on seeing his sister being traumatized by the insensitive media and requests him to help them out. Dash, however, disagrees with him and Dash eventually kills KC after their disagreement turns into a bloody fight. Dash himself is then killed by the now high-on-cocaine Amy, who has a violent flashback about her dead mother trying to drown her [while she was a kid], while Dash holds her down in the church. She then stabs Dash to his death, ending the mayhem. Another parallel story line is the life of the cop played by Rajeev Khandelwal, who nearly divorces his wife but gets back together with her as the story progresses and eventually ends. He plays the role of an uptight cop who is not hesitant to be bad to get good done, and on one such occasion, he nearly kills a person and is suspended because of it.

Production

Director Bejoy Nambiar, who assisted Mani Ratnam in Guru, approached Kalki Koechlin to play a role in the movie. But since the film was not moving for two years, Anurag Kashyap agreed to produce it on a smaller budget.

Soundtrack

The music is composed by Prashant Pillai, Amar Mohile, Ranjit Barot, and Anupam Roy. Lyrics are penned by K. S. Krishnan, Sanjeev Sharma, Colin Terence, Abhishek, and Shradha.

Reception

The film received positive response from critics in India. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4/5 stars and said "Shaitan is bound to raise eyebrows thanks to its contemporary, thrilling, hard-hitting and forceful content. One of the most ingenious and entertaining thrillers Ive seen in a long time." Pankaj Sabnani from Glamsham also gave the film 4/5 and said "Shaitan is a spellbinding thriller with awesomeness written all over it."Nikhat Kazmi gave it 3.5/5 stars and wrote "it turns the camera three-sixty degrees and brings you the grime of a subterranean sub-culture that throbs amidst a certain section of metropolitan maverick twenty-somethings." Anupama Chopra from NDTV gave the film 3/5 stars. Mayank Shekhar from Hindustan Times also gave the film 3/5 stars. Ankit Ojha of Planet Bollywood praised the film and its thematic element to a large extent, giving the movie 9 stars out of 10, thereby also writing, "Nambiar has managed to impress each and everyone of the discerning film viewer and movie buff. This is Hindi cinema finally coming of age! Recommended for more than one watch, as to absorb the totality of the film''s context and subtext! Outstanding stuff!" One negative review came from Raja Sen of Rediff.com. He gave it 2/5 stars and wrote "Populated exclusively by the very coolest of character actors, backgrounded by a blaring retro-loving soundtrack, and shot dizzyingly in hypertechnicolor."

Track listing

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