It is the last film of Vishal Bharadwaj's Shakespearian trilogy and the most ambitious one. In the first two films (Maqbool and Omkara) the focus was on the plays and adapting it in an Indian backdrop. But in this film the focus was on Kashmir and it's complicated relationships with India. The play is integrated into the conflict. In Hamlet in the end everyone dies and so in the Kashmir conflict everyone loses as the situation has reached a stalemate. The film if taken on it's own merits is a bit slow paced and the acting by KK Menon and Shahid Kapoor is not always convincing. But when the play is added to the equation it makes more sense. It's a ambitious project and Vishal Bharadwaj pulls it off more or less.

Each era has its Hamlet; every region has its Claudius, just with different names. Undoubtedly, the story of Haider is a manifestation of the revenge of Hamlet in the region of Kashmir, a place beautiful, remote, and cruel. The scenario uses Hamlet's revenge as its skeleton, and conflicts between India &Pakistan as its flesh. This setting gives universal emotional resonance, and characteristics plus topicality. The first half tells about a young man called Haider who returned home because of his father's disappearance. He had a smart and pretty girlfriend who is the daughter of local police officer; a mother who stayed at his uncle's house after her own was destroyed; an ambitious uncle who wanted to be elected official. Haider looked still very sentimental and innocence, no matter how many times he was turned down, he was still not willing to give up hopes to find his father. Before the "ghost" of his father haunting, he is just a normal boy or a sensitive young poet (I watched the movie with subtitles which he describe himself as a poet, maybe the words has other mean in origin language). Well the second part, after Haider knowing his father was brutally tortured and died miserably , the movies turned into another style, which is darker, cynical, and full of violence. Even Haider himself was on the edge of madness, which accelerate the tragic story line. The open-ending is shocking but still makes sense. Similar as almost all other Bollywood movie, "Haider" has several song and dance scene. I want to say not every one of them was fitting the movie. One last second Haider was full of anger with his uncle, the next second he saw his girlfriend and started to sing and dance with her, this kind of turning is stiff. I like Indian style musical movies, in Haider, the dance, or rather to say a play in the play which mocked his uncle is very powerful and absorbing. The movie actually not only tells us a story of revenge, but also arouse audience to think deeply: to live in a world full of lies and under an oppressive government, how can we know what freedom is? To bear both side advocate their legitimacy then never ending conflict, how to bring peace back? Without a military maintaining order, a region will get into chaos, with an unjust military, a region will be treated terribly, and then how should we be organized and armed?All great thoughts are raised by ideologist and dreamer, but used by realist and plunger, how to prevent the common dream be taken advantage and how to keep ourselves fighting for our own freedom rather than for politician's money and career? Similar tragedies are happening every day in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Libya… Seems like they are endless, like a ouroboros. In the movie "the great dictator" , Charlie Chaplin appealed to all the world to stop being manipulated, to love each other, to fight for democracy , but how ?

Vishal Bharadwaj has an excellent reputation in the Hindi film industry, but his films clearly aren't for everyone. You could never sit with the entire family and watch Omkara, Saat Khoon Maaf, Kaminey or Haider but he does what he does pretty well. Haider is no doubt one of his better films, but it's a story that loses you way too many times. Not that I glance away from the screen that much, but some of the dialogues aren't clear enough for the average movie watcher to understand. Shahid Kapoor delivers his best work to date. He eases into the role of Haider and shows what he is really made of. It seems that only Bharadwaj can bring out the best in him because his other films clearly don't bring out anything in him! His on screen presence with Tabu is excellent and one of the best mother-son combinations in recent times. Tabu is back with a bang and it's great to see her in a different avatar to what we've seen in the past. She is a powerhouse of acting talent, and Haider allows her to portray this. KK Menon is also back with a bang, and does an excellent job in the negative role. Shraddha Kapoor looks beautiful, and delivers another good role to her already growing portfolio of good work. Irrfan Khan is just too good and I wish he had a more meatier role. The music of the film is really good - Khul Khabi and Aao Na are my favourites. Not sure what Vishal is doing with the song Jhelum though?! On the whole Haider is a good film, but certainly not one that I would put forward to win any best film awards. It does deserve two awards - Best actor for Shahid and Best supporting actress for Tabu.

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.