Shabri - Review

If you get past the delicate-yet-rugged sari-clad woman, stomping around slums shooting people at sight, Shabri is just another underworld/gangster movie. The same old tiff between factions within gangs, the same old fragility between cops and goons. Only difference is a woman gets caught in between all of this for no good reason.

When you are done watching Shabri, you will realize that whatever reason there was to get Shabri (Eesha Koppikhar) involved with the hoodlums was only so that somehow they could get an angry young woman involved.

It's not like there wasn't an interesting conflict. Shabri does get herself in a soup by estranging both the police and the underworld don. And you wonder how she is going to wade out. Even though you are uninvolved, you are curious as any bystander would be. But unfortunately, the resolution is too simplistic and you can only laugh at the cop-out.

And this is a shame because there was so much potential for me to get attached. A woman, whose life isn't enviable as it is, is wronged (for a change it's not rape this once). The hurt only makes her stronger and she uses her anger to change what one might have accepted as destiny.

I think this was a sort-of wasted opportunity for Eesha Koppikhar. Who would've imagined her to be cast in a role like this? But unfortunately she is made to hold just one expression through most of the film. And the rare occasions when she emotes a little more than that with a smirk, you realize she is capable of so much more. On the other hand, for what Shabri is going through, I cannot imagine her having anything other than a dead/blank look. Otherwise, her tan make-up was distracting too. It managed to disguise the glamor that she usually carries, and so did her stride, but somehow all of that looked to artificial, too put-on for the sake of the camera.

Shabri is grim and brown. At times, it is even tiring because of how much you have to concentrate to figure out what's happening in the low light. The tone given to the regular gang-war story is very serious too. Even if you are looking forward to a story about a woman gangster, I'd say this isn't something worth getting too excited about.