ShaKti Review by Prachi
Inspired by the hollywood film "Not Without My Daughter" based on a true life story, Shakti is the story of a woman born an raised in Canada Nandini (Karisma Kapoor). Nandini falls in love with and gets married to Shekhar (Sanjay Kapoor). Their life is candy-coated perfect until she finds out the truth about Shekhar's family. Shekhar and Nandini and their son Raja goto Bihar to see Shekhar's family, especially his mother. But one after another events lead to disaster in the end leading to Nandini in a struggle for her son against her father in law Narsimha (Nana Patekar).

I have not seen Not Without My Daughter, but from what I know about the film, the writers have done a good job interpreting it into a "bollywood" film. The screenplay is not bad at all, the film moves at a decent pace doesnt drop so low that it bores you and doesnt go so fast that you loose track of what happened. The story does suffer from cheesy moments, like the rushed wedding and few other ones, but at other times it is decent and touching. The dialogues were criticized for being too harsh , but they were trying to show the reality of a certain part of India, and believe me the condition is like that, people do talk like that and behave that way in the villages. There is probably someone like Narsimha out there who does everything the same way. His motives and everything does seem real, and yes the film at times can be offending but it is the reality, people like that exist, people whose way of living is killing. The movie in all convey's the harshness of life lead by people in some parts of the world.

The director does a good job of showing how a girl who grew up in the richness of life deals with its harshness. The movie is also about true animal instincts of people of protecting their child and fighting for their survival. And in all the direction is impressive, he was able to extract amazing peformances from his characters and that is a job well done. It is not perfect, but its good enough.

The music is very melodious, I enjoyed it from the begining. My favorites are Ishq Kameena and Hum Tum Mile, i was very upset that Jhoomti Ghata was not in it because its my favorite from the whole soundtrack and its such a beautiful song. Dumroo Baje, Dil Ne Pukara and Ei Chand are also nice songs. Ishq Kameena definately has the best choreography, Hum Tum Mile is picturized in a very pretty place, Dil Ne Pukara is cute, Dumroo Baje is very festive and Ei Chand is appropriate. In all the movie has a very nice soundtrack.

Performance wise the movie complteley belongs to Karisma, she gives another remarkable performance after Zubeidaa and surely is a contender for the award this year. She plays out her part wonderfully and has all the right emotions her character needs. She could have done with a little less screaming. She also looks beautiful as usual.

Nana Patekar has done another amazing job, this man is so talented. After Parinda this is one movie in which he plays a negative character to perfection, his portrayal of the brutal Narsimha is amazing.

Sanjay Kapoor is another very talented actor. He does a good supporting job in the movie, he is very talented and needs better movies to showcase his talents. And he also looks quite nice in some parts.

Shahrukh is amazing as usual, he is the "comic" character in the film. His character gives us the much needed laugh in all the chaos and mess. Even though his part was a bit too streched in the end (near the railway track) he is very cute. Ishq Kameena which was also uneccessary was good for a relief. And well when can we say no to seeing Shahrukh. Its not really a "dynamic" role but his character is so cute that you just cant resist.

Aishwarya looks good and dances well.

Deepti Naval is also great at Shekhar's mom. She has some powerful scenes and she does a remarkable job.

The little kid is just too adorable.

The cinematography is also good and I love their house in Canada. Tiku Talsania and Jaspal Bhatti have no role, just there for a few laughs.

Overall its a decent film, which could have been better. Its not really that bad and has some really good moments. Its is very sad and touching at moments, I did cry more than once. So see it and decide for yourself. Its not that bad.

Rating: 3/5