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With every second film today announcing itself as a thriller in one sub-genre or another, standing out requires something genuinely extraordinary. Sadly, Haiwaan isn’t that film. So much of it feels like something you’ve seen before; don’t be surprised if you’ve worked out the plot by the interval itself.

Slow-paced, longer than needed

For those curious, here’s a quick recap — and for anyone who has seen Oppam, you already know exactly where this is headed. The opening sequence introduces us to a man — we assume it’s a man — marked by a snake tattoo and a forbidding air. We then meet Saif Ali Khan’s Shyam Rane, a visually impaired man who has raised his siblings since their father’s early death, compensating for his loss of vision with a heightened sense of smell, sound and touch.

He is the accomplished, hands-on and indispensable maintenance manager at a high-rise building in Mumbai. Retired judge Pradhan (Boman Irani), who lives in the same building, shares a close bond with him and often leans on him for everyday tasks. One day, Pradhan tells Shyam about an old case involving Parshuram (Akshay Kumar) — a man arrested for rape and sentenced to seven years, who always maintained his innocence.

The case has haunted Pradhan ever since. Now out of prison, Parshuram has begun killing people connected to the case — and he’s coming for the judge next.

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That’s how the plot rolls, and it’s not hard to guess that things aren’t quite what they seem. Shyam, despite his lack of sight, is unusually quick with his reflexes, almost as if he has a sixth sense. Parshuram, meanwhile, is a small-town man who looks — and behaves — like anything but, and neither his mannerisms nor his demeanour ever quite convince you of how chilling or magnetic he’s supposed to be.

Here’s the main problem: pace. Unnecessary songs, including an item number that adds nothing, are thrown in just before the thriller is meant to kick in — right when your patience is already being tested. Priyadarshan does show flashes of his comic instincts, with Sharib Hashmi’s Inspector Sanjay Shinde breaking up the tense moments. But here, the comic relief feels like it’s there for its own sake rather than serving the story — comedy that could have helped the tension instead undercuts it.

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.

Hits and misses

Saif Ali Khan is good as Shyam, but he doesn’t quite land the rustic quality the character calls for — the polish of the Nawab of Pataudi is hard to shake off. Akshay Kumar, who has played the antagonist several times before and done it well, isn’t genuinely scary here.

The menacing coldness the role demands is missing and by the time the tense final sequence arrives, it falls flat because you never quite buy into the threat he’s supposed to represent.

The ensemble saves the film, partly.

The late Asrani appears as security guard Hussain in what turned out to be his final screen performance (he passed in October 2025), and it’s a small treasure — warm, funny, entirely real, and a lovely reminder of the career the man had.

Boman Irani is dependable as ever, while Sharib Hashmi remains the film’s most consistent source of entertainment, even if his cop’s casual resort to police brutality is hardly something to admire.

Shriya Pilgaonkar and Saiyami Kher are relegated to being supporting characters. Haiwaan is a classic case of Indian thrillers repeating the same pattern and weaving the same fabric but never seem to learn from.

Newcomer Paahal Chaudhary, playing Pradhan’s daughter Nandini, brings an unexpected vulnerability to a role that could easily have been reduced to a plot device.

And then there’s Mohanlal, who starred in the original Oppam, making a brief but welcome cameo in the Hindi adaptation — a nice bridge between the two films, even if it barely lasts a few minutes.

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It’s worth noting that Haiwaan marks something of a comeback for Priyadarshan too — his first major dive back into dark, serious territory after a long run of comedies, in the vein of earlier work like Gardish (1993) and Virasat (1997). On paper, that’s a good sign: this is a director who knows tension and knows actors. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the film he’s built around two of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars, reuniting after 18 years, doesn’t trust its own story enough to just tell it straight.

Haiwaan has a strong cast and a genuinely good plot at its core and with a director who knows his craft, it needed better writing and tighter editing. Trim 30 minutes, lose the item number, and tighten the screenplay, and this could have been the taut, chilling thriller its marketing promised. As it stands, it’s a film that announces its intentions loudly and then takes its time — too much time — getting there.