Cortechba Overrated

Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Peter Young The power of Shakti is evidenced in its portrayal of the power of a mother's love, the exceptional performances, the steady execution and the rather innovative script. The film tells the story of an Indian woman, Nandini, who lives in Canada with her husband Shekhar and little kid Raja. All of a sudden her husband informs her that his family in India (of whom she had never been aware) is in troubles and the couple rush to India. When they get into the village, Nanadini is shocked and terrified to witness a very wild rural culture; Shekhar's family, ruled by his cruel, highly cynical and merciless father Narasimha, lives a poor and highly violent lifestyle which is full of murder and terror and where women are subservient and helpless. Nandini starts nagging Shekhar to return home, but he is soon killed by his father's enemies. When she wants to leave, Narasimha refuses to let her take Raja back to India. Here starts the intense struggle which can be called "Nandini vs. Narasimha".India is not presented in a particularly positive light in this film, but it only shows a very tiny minority of its rural areas, so it may be even correct. The portrayal is in my view fair and not one-sided because the positive side is also presented to an extent. Such a horrifying sight could be shown in a film about any country in the world. The locations are amazing, the music is wonderful, and Krishna Vamshi's direction is aided by very effective cinematography and good editing. One thing that must be noted is the very ear-pleasing background score by Ismail Darbar, which is fantastic. The characters are very well defined though we do get to see both their bright and dark sides in different portions of the film. Portrayed realistically throughout, the film is totally chilling and gripping, and it flows well to create an interesting and fairly entertaining watch. The dialogues are superb, and although the shocking proceedings are disturbing at some points, a great deal of positive moments manage to relieve the tension.The film's biggest strength is the performances. Karisma Kapoor is breathtaking and very believable as Nandini. Her ability to strike a balance between vulnerability and unrestrained emotion is simply incredible. She displays so much intensity, anguish and determination as the mother who wants to get her son back that this little kid seems to be her own son. Her outbreaks while facing off Nana Patekar which are like volcanic eruptions show us how the simplest of women can become a tigress when it comes to her child. After Fiza, this is her most powerful performance. One of the greatest actors Indian cinema has seen, Nana Patekar is indescribable as Narasimha. He manages to be hateful as Narasimha yet admirable as the actor who plays him. Patekar displays cruelty, wittiness and even humanity with total conviction, and his dialect and mannerisms are outstanding. Another great performance comes unsurprisingly from India's most underrated actress, Deepti Naval, who sensitises her character to perfection. Sanjay Kapoor is just adequate and Shahrukh Khan provides great comic relief. Anyway, do watch Shakti - it could have been better, but it is definitely a must-watch.

mbanwait Shakti is a film that Bollywood cannot ever produce genuinely. What I mean by this is, the fact that with an intense story such as the one in Shakti, the requisite bollywood formula of 5 dance numbers just does not fit into the storyline, and thus becomes jarring and inappropriate. The only way to remove the songs would be to classify the movie as an art film, which would lead to many filmgoers dismissing the film and subsequenlty producers would have a tough time attracting top stars to the project.Shakti is a very ambitious film with a very different storyline from the bollywood conventional norms. The problem is the over abundance of violence and profanity which many current filmgoers have become averse to. Even hot blooded indian males seem to be shunning action movies and watching gay musical romps with teen agers in the lead roles. Come on we need more Sunny Deols and Akshay Kumar movies. I think that the violent nature of the movie and the characters will lead a large majority of filmgoers to ignore this film, including the ladies and the above mentioned males.Nana Patekar does an outstanding job as the trecharous father in law.While the lead actress, is severly mis cast in her role, and is just screaming for a national award. Although we must give her kudos for attempting a difficult role requiring more range than dancing around the alps of switzerland.Shah Rukh Khans role is inconsequential and meaningless. Since there is no positive role in the movie, you would expect him to be the knight in shining armour but he just seems to be stuck in, in the last 30 minutes of the film to sing a song and may be draw in audiences who are unaware of his overglorified cameo. And his subsequent fate is rather meaningless was well. (spoiler alert)!!!! The sad part of the film is the fact that it does not follow bollywood conventions when it is neccesary. Why does Karishma kapoor not get her revenge in the end. Instead she is seen pandering to her father in law by leaving india thinking he is a great man because he let her son go. Blow his brains out KK, audiences would have loved to see a female commando.I gave this movie a 6/10 for effort. But the actual material is handled quite poorly. It is not surprising to see that it wilted away at the Indian/International Box Office. Too bad Shakti had no power.

benjybaby I sat down to watch Shakti with a lot of trepidation....though the reviews had been mixed.....they all seemed to agree on one thing.....the brutality and the gore was just too much and many reviewers questioned if a film like shakti which promotes itself as a film about female emancipation is in fact more detrimental to women that the normal bollywood formula film.....to my amazement i was pleasantly surprised with shakti........loosely adapted from the sally field starrer not without my daughter......the story of shakti is simple enough (spoilers ahead)....circumstances take nri nandini to india where she is shocked at the brutality and violence of her husband's father.....after her husband is killed.......nandini finds herself in a desperate struggle to leave the country with her father-in-law hot on her trail to get her son and his heir......from this fairly formulaic premise, shakti builds into an engrossing, compelling and yes, brutal movie......shakti takes place in a fictional feudal town in bihar....a state that has long been known for it's bloody caste wars and general lawlessness....in fact the violence depicted in shakti maybe closer to reality than many of us would like to admit.....but the question about how much violence is too much violence has to be asked....here is my answer.....according to taran adarsh (BOO!!!!!), females and gentle ladies like myself have our delicate sensibilities offended at the reckless spilling of blood......unfortunately for taran, my sensibilities are rarely offended by gross brutality (whether this does not make me a gentle lady is debatable).......i sat through bandit queen and bawander..two recent films that put some pretty terrifying stuff on screen........but i am offended when violence is used as gimmick......when throwing a bomb or chopping someone's head off in the most primitive way is shown as a reason for the front-benchers to break into loud applause.....and this was my primary problem with shakti....not too much violence but too much gimmicky violence......what other reasonable explanation can there be for the annoyingly stupid - "look i kick ass like keanu reeves in the matrix" excuses for stunt work that krishna vamsi showcases in the film.......they are fairly poor special effects which not only slow the momentum of the film but take away from it's effectiveness.....some of the most effective scenes of violence in shakti are not the cool stunts or the "main tera khoon pi jayunga" kind of killing.....it's the simple scenes......like when nana patekar uses his hands and feet.....to hit out at karishma kapoor outside the police station after one of her first attempts at escape.....and when karishma fights back....there's no yelling or cool moves......she uses her hands rather ineffectively, flailing against him in desperation, to pummel him finally getting a gun but using the butt of the rifle to keep the goons away....it's crude but effective......no slow motion neccesary....but gimmicky violence, extremely useless music (all the songs are either boring or wrongly placed) and choppy editing aside......shakti scores with it's generally well-done background music (except for the cheesy western srk theme...that is so sholay), interesting cinematography ( i loved the constant panning of the desolate landsacpe and the quick swoop close-ups)and most importantly it's performances.......nana patekar has done this kind of thing before...the i'm so loony i'm dangerous role....most memorably as anna in parinda.....but it's the kind of thing he does very effectively as he demonstrates in shakti.......srk's short but sweet role as a petty thief and nandini's knight in holey vest kind of armour is a throwback to the kind of heroes hindi cinema used to have before they all morphed into harvard-educated, armani-wearing, sensitive 90s men (remember anthony gonsalves....even jai and veeru).......and perhaps srk is one of the few current bollywood actors who has the requisite star power and charm to pull of the role.....he does so with panache (even his hamminess seems necessary here) but for the second movie in succession struggles with his accent.....after turning devdas' posh british accent into a crude american drawl ('yeah yeah'......for crying out loud!!!).......his bihari accent wavers constantly between bambaiiya and bihari with the occasional posh english word thrown in......in a lesser actor it would be laughable.....in an actor of srk's calibre....it's unforgiveable coz it points to lazy acting or lazy directing or both.....as for sanjay kapoor.......he still reminds me too much of his older brother who is a much much better actor.....and actually played a longer version of sanjay's role...the village pacifist to better effect in virasatbut the stars of the show are the women....they represent two diametrically opposite views......deepti naval plays the submissive, long suffering mother who watches the brutality silently and even jokes about it when she laughingly tells a tailor she'll chop him into a thousand pieces if he screws up the measurements for her beloved son's new clothes.......karishma plays on screen what many are thinking as they watch.....first confusion, then horror and disgust at the brutality.....it's been a while since deepti naval had a meaty role and she latches on to it for dear life.....as ma she moves fluidly between undying love for her son and undying loathing for her brute of a husband.....her final scene is memorable for it's scathing dialogue and deepti's bang on delivery of it....karishma kapoor has an uncanny knack of picking roles all other reputed actresses have rejected and turning it into pure gold.....she has also for the last couple of years worked single-mindedly to erase all memories of "sarkailyo khatiya" from our heads.......once again she succeeds in both.....as nandini she delivers her most heartfelt and hard-hitting performance to date....showing love, confusion, fear, loathing and surprising will with ease.....she lives her role whether it is screeching desperately for her son or giving her father-in-law a piece of his own medicine.....and yet shakti also disappoints.....it showcases all that is wrong with bollywood formula and why many current directors are seriously rethinking it.....in the midst of highly effective melodrama....bollywood formula demands an item number, the jhakaas entry for the hero, the 5 songs, the extended and overly melodramatic fight sequences.....shakti has it all and it's all jarringly out of place....krishna vamsi makes a decent debut but if he had had the courage to abandon the formula completely.....it would have been a far far better moviefinal rating - 7/10.....ps indian censors continue to annoy and amaze me...they ban bandit queen....heavily censor bawander but let shakti go with a few curse words blocked out.....crap!

PaulR-3 Seeing this movie was the most fun I've had at the cinema in a long time. However, I am not able to say whether this is a good or a bad film, because such simple qualifications simply cannot be applied. This picture has everything any movie could ever have. It has characteristics of a romantic comedy, a political commentary, a thriller, a drama, an action movie, a musical, and an absurdist self-conscious art film. It's all in there, adding up to a myth.The basic premise is about an Indian couple, Nandini (Karishma Kapoor) and Shekhar (Sanjay Kapoor), happily living in Canada, who rush to India to visit the husband's parents after a disturbing news report. The rest of the story takes place in India, where the couple find themselves in the midst of a plot of fratricidal violence. At one point, the story borrows from "Not without my baby," but to call Shakti a remake of anything would be an injustice.The ostensible story line takes a backseat to a number of astonishing interruptions, including Shah Rukh Khan's dream of Aishwarya Rai which comes as if out of another movie. In fact, the two stars are on all the posters, but they appear really late in the film, and only Shah Rukh ends up being a real character. Yet he makes up for it with a spirited and truly unexpected performance.Karishma Kapoor is the one with most work to do in this film, and she does an admirable job, having to link up the film's twists and turns with a show of believable emotion. Another notable presence is Nana Patekar, who plays Narsimha, the tyrannical father of the husband Shekhar. Nana Patekar dominates every scene he's in with a scary but nuanced character.The movie is not without its share of realism. Violence is rampant, but truly disturbing in the abuse received by most of the female characters, with Karishma getting soundly beaten on a number of occasions. At times, this violence is clearly disturbing but ultimately it becomes surreal as every dramatic sequence is usually followed by such comic and spectacular turns that the overall effect is nothing but cathartic.I have seen a share of Bollywood releases, and the mixing of genres and incredible plot resolutions are certainly their norm. But "Shakti" raises the bar by absorbing an even greater masala without becoming ridiculous. It is a film that achieves the grandeur of a Shakespearian tragedy, where the audience of the rabble and royalty is equally entertained. It is pure, gratuitous cinema, and the director Krishna Vamsi must have had a dream of a good time by throwing in every trick in the book. Perhaps, the all-important message of violence begetting violence and the inspiring extents of motherly love were not the thoughts on my mind, but I came out of watching "Shakti" exhilarated. Making movies can be the most fun in the world!