The web series is about a dishevelled family of a lone mother and three siblings who are put to the test incessantly by their fate in society.
'Shaitan' web series is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar. (Twitter)
Shaitan (Telugu)
Shaitan, the title of the web series is as inappropriate as a rudderless ship, that is stuck in a storm in the mid-ocean.
Nor does it appeal as to how protagonist Baali (Manish Rishi) turns an informer to counter naxals in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh.
Shaitan might have certainly ruffled a few feathers when the trailer was out before its OTT release for the dialogues that swore by the cuss words and the gory bloodshed, which amplified the excitement of film lovers.
Rishi and Deviyani in ‘Shaitan’. (deviyani sharma
/ Twitter)
Shaitan is the story of a dishevelled family of a lone mother Savithri (Shelly Kishore) and three siblings Baali (Rishi), Gumthi (Jaffer Sadiq), Jayaprada (Deviyani Sharma).
They all are put to the test incessantly by their fate in a society that is wrought with greed and unjustness.
Savithri fights all odds to raise her children and dreams of a dignified life. But all four are stuck in a vicious cycle of a cruel world.
She has no other way left than accepting the sexual advances of local cop Yakub to feed her hungry children. The calmness in Baali gets overtaken by anger when Yakub touches his sister. Thus, he draws the first blood.
He is tainted as a criminal but only Baali knows the victim inside him. When the police seriously hatch a plan to hunt him down, Baali is drawn to the communist ideology because Baali believes he could be a good weapon to fight against the system.
Will he ever see freedom is what the story of Shaitan is about.
Only 2 days stand between us and the arrival of #Shaitan. Are you ready for it? ⏳😈
Bloodbath begins from June 15, with #ShaitanOnHotstar! Only on @DisneyplusHSTel.@MahiVraghav @3alproduction @Rishi_vorginal @JafferJiky @sharma_deviyani @LenaKumar12 @NithinPrasanna… pic.twitter.com/dKtZ3dDQBp— Disney+ Hotstar Telugu (@DisneyPlusHSTel) June 13, 2023
On the sets of ‘Shaitan’. (deviyani sharma
/ Twitter)
Kannada actor Rishi plays a determined criminal Baali who wears a smile on his face despite the circumstances he undergoes in his life. The actor does complete justice to the role of Baali.
Rishi is known for his performance in Kavaludaari (2019), which was later remade in Telugu as Kapatadhaari (2021) with Sumanth.
Malayalam actress Shelly Kishore, who shot to fame with the blockbuster Minnal Murali (2021), played a naive and gullible mother Savithri, who can easily be tricked and groped by men taking her advantage, is impressive.
Deviyani Sharma gave her best in this de-glamour role as Jayaprada, who is vexed with the recurring incidents in her life. She portrayed the right emotions on the screen.
Another actor Ravi Kale as a stern upright police officer Nagi Reddy, who takes forward the vision of eradicating the naxal movement in the state, is good in his role. Another Malayalam actress Lena as Mary Joseph IPS too is impressive.
Rishi as Balli in ‘Shaitan’. (Rishi/ Twitter)
Shaitan could be one of the boldest web series in the OTT space recently for the use of profane words.
It might fare well because of the portrayal of violence and sexual content in the series, but there will be points where it gets too heavy on the mind.
For example, there’s a scene where the home minister uses a cuss word with a fellow woman IPS officer as other characters too use them profusely.
In another scene, a mother uses the same language with her son — “Police debbalaki nee sareeram tho patu nee dhairyam kuda dengipoyindha? (has your braveness got f**ked up due to the police thrashing?).
The depiction of the Naxalite movement during the mid-90s to 2000s, the police atrocities against the Naxals, how the State government of erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh formed Greyhounds, specialised in counter-insurgency operations against Maoist movements on Andhra-Odisha borders were all showcased neatly.
However, there’s a mismatch in the timeline while depicting the assassination of Greyhounds founder KS Vyas IPS.
Bloodbath has begun🔥#ShaitanOnHotstar is now streaming only on #DisneyPlusHotstar@MahiVraghav @3alproduction @Rishi_vorginal @JafferJiky @sharma_deviyani @LenaKumar12 @NithinPrasanna @DamaAneesha @shammysaga @SriramMaddury @HyndaviSuda @artdirectorraj pic.twitter.com/rUzQQtEEHl
— Disney+ Hotstar Tamil (@disneyplusHSTam) June 15, 2023
Director Mani V Raghav on the sets. (deviyani sharma
/ Twitter)
Shaitan is any other routine run-of-the-mill, predictable story. The early 2000s was the era when the telecommunications network and cellular phones trend was just picking up.
However, director Mahi V Raghav tries to make the audiences believe that police officer Nagi Reddy, who is in a combing operation, whips out his cell phone and speaks to his higher-ups in the middle forest where you usually don’t catch signals!
The artwork while depicting the pre-digital era is a bit shoddy. But the cinematography and production work and Sriram Maddury’s music are appreciable.
Director Mahi V Raghav, who donned different hats first as a producer for Villagelo Vinayakudu (2009), writer and then a director for Yatra (2019), has done a reasonably good job in incorporating political events while taking the life of Baali as the peg of the story.
The bottom line is that Shaitan is a story marred with cliched dialogues and screenplay portraying gore, violence and plenty of unwanted cuss words.
(Views expressed are personal.)
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