I have not seen it but i found this short review by u/rsa1/
Okay, I'll talk about it purely
as a movie, not about the validity of the political commentary.
The good: excellent acting and dialogues. Shahid's aggressiveness in
Bismil and the general madness was brilliantly conveyed. Tabu, KK and Irfan were all perfect as well. The use of "chutzpah" (a well-done example of
this trope) and the two Salman fans had everybody laughing in the theatre. Good music too. Without a doubt, one of the best movies of the year, if not THE best. It's a work of art in a world where people are trying to remake critical and commercial rejects from Hollywood.
The bad: some pieces don't tie well together. Army brutality is shown, but the link with AFSPA isn't convincing. Anybody harbouring a terrorist in any country would be arrested, AFSPA or no AFSPA. Torture again is shown, but there's no link between the Theon Greyjoyization of random Kashmiri youth with the main thread of the story. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's an unnecessary digression from an engrossing core plot. It's like if Chris Nolan decided to inject random Guantanamo torture scenes into the
The Dark Knight. The same goes for "azadi", the movie again doesn't establish why Haider (the character) believes that is the solution to his problem. Haider is not shown to be a guy who thinks beyond himself, so he's not talking about azadi to help other people either, so it doesn't at all seem relevant to his character.
Of course, if you take away AFSPA and "azadi" this story could just as easily be set in Kanpur or Kanchipuram instead of Kashmir, and that is the movie's biggest failure: it tried to talk about the unique political situation of Kashmir without actually being able to establish its relevance or importance to the plot. There is an important story about the Kashmir problem that needs to be told, but
Haider is not that story.
