A run of films like Tshq Vishk" and Tab We Met’ were chocolate boy Shahid Kapoor's only claim to fame -- until “Haider* came along. An adaptation of “Hamlet*, Shakespeare's immortal play, “Haider* has Kapoor in the titular role. Here he casts aside his romantic persona to play the anguished Haider who loses his father in politically turbulent Kashmir and watches his mother marry his father's lawyer brother soon after.

Set in 1995 when militancy in Kashmir was at boiling point, “Haider* is in many ways a political film -- complete with the carefully planned strategies of militants, the excesses of the Indian army and the people of the beautiful valley caught somewhere in between. So Haider is always suspect as the son of a doctor who is marched away by the army for his political leanings. He must negotiate carefully to locate what exactly happened to his father, deal with his complicated relationship with his mother (Tabu) and contend with familial opposition to his love for a journalist (Shraddha Kapoor).

'Haider' is the third film in Vishal Bhardwaj's Shakespearean trilogy “Maqbool" (based on "Macbeth’) and 'Omkara* (the director's answer to “Othello"). Comparisons between Bhardwaj's first two tragedies are inevitable. For some “Haider" is a disappointment as its pace -- unlike the two earlier ones — slackens sometimes. Also many fault its one-sided depiction of the Indian Army.

As some critics carp, the film seems to have received a warm reception from other critics, film lovers and film industry insiders. “Haider' is Tabu's best performance,” tweeted Irrfan Khan who plays a mysterious character in the film. Meanwhile, a media report reveals that actress Sridevi and her daughter, who watched the film in a Mumbai multiplex headed straightaway to Tabu's house to give her their fulsome praise for her role as the complex mother in “Haider".

Meanwhile, according to BBC, Bhardwaj is facing some backlash over what many describe as his “unfair*' portrayal of the armed forces, but he has defended the plot of his film. "I'm also an Indian, I'm also a patriot, 1 also love my nation. So I won't do anything which is anti-national. But what is anti-human, I will definitely comment on it, “ he said.

Indian Twitter users are divided over the film and the sentiment has been reflected in two rival hashtags: The hashtag #BoycottHaider has received big numbers of tweets. But others see “Haider" as a true expression of real cinema in India. The hashtag #HaiderThteCinema has also attracted tens of thousands of tweets since Friday.