Newbie director Bejoy Nambiar certainly has got himself an impressive if not a mind-blowing debut. And the young actors have done justice to his quirky script & storytelling technique.
You can recognize new age cinema with its 'hatke' script, youthful actors and edgy storytelling / narration. And when you go see Shaitaan you can see all of it there.
The story opens with brief introductory scenes of the lead characters that give you an insight into what each character's personality is like. The story unfolds to show an unruly group of spoilt brat teenagers who believe in the adage 'if you got it, you gotta flaunt it'.
A NRIs daughter Amy (Kalki Koelchin), with a traumatic past, is new in town. She joins the spoilt teenager group and finally starts to enjoy her life. After a night of partying, drinking, doing drugs & racing their Hummer on the empty roads, these guys happen to mow down two innocent people and subsequently flee the scene.
At this point the story actually starts taking pace. In order to escape judicial custody they make an arrangement with a cop who for a huge sum of money will take care of their case. Since none of them has enough money to pay the cop off, they hatch a plan of staging the kidnapping of Amy and demanding the ransom money.
From here the story starts to spiral towards things that neither of them imagined would happen. What was considered to be a harmless plan turns out to be something that will change their lives forever.
This movie is a classic example of how peer pressures and herd mentality can actually make the sanest of people do things that they wouldn't normally do, only to realize it when it's too late.
There is also a parallel track running of the cop Mathur (Rajeev Khandelwal) who has been given the responsibility of handling the case. Along with his professional life, we get to see glimpses of his personal life & the problems he is facing in his marriage. In fact in the end you realize that it isn't easy being a cop where you have the responsibility of protecting the nation with a measly salary being paid for it.
The story is interspersed with clever narration techniques and flashbacks which make the film edgy.
The end makes you feel sorry for the characters & makes you question practicality vs. idealism.
A decent watch I say.
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