By: Farhana Sultana

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Cast: Jas Pandher, Kanishka, Saddiya, Danny Denzongpa, Prem Chopra, Ashish Vidyarthi, Tej Sapru, Shakti Kapoor and Raj Babbar
Screenplay and Direction: Darshan Bagga.
Cinematography: Naren Gedia
Producer: Himalaya Motion Pictures

The supposed hero of the film changes his glares for every sequence but you soon realize that it is his anomalous attempt at masking his bad performance. Nice try, but tough luck. Jas and producer dad try really hard to churn up a film that runs down the retro lane in the genre of the whodunits of the 1980s and 90s. SHIKAAR is one of those films that stand as an illustration of what defines a bad film. The hero's spate of bad acting along with the clueless producer...the less spoken about the director the better. The script stretches clumsily through an incoherent suspense drama with villains popping out of every nook and crack, trying very hard to seem threatening, mirthful and monstrously motivated.

SHIKAAR opens in a placid hill station...could it be more cliched? The car thief, Vijay (Jas Pandher) is selling a hotel in Mussorie for a throwaway price. So the gang of casino owners (Danny Denzongpa, Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor, Ashish Vidyarthi, Tej Sapru and Shweta Menon) jumps for the offer. The twist: the partners die one after another, at the drop of a hat. Enter ACP Sumed Singh (Raj Babbar), to investigate the case.

Is there a point to all this, you ask. Why bother? You should have figured the answer by now. The film is full of cheap thrills, sleazy chills and cheesy item songs but obviously lacks the primal thing...they must have heard of something called a tight script.

Practically everyone is tortured, including your poor brain. Even a C-grade film is perhaps makes for a better watch than this...I don't if we can even call it a film?

After hearing all this, god forbid you decide to watch the film, then God save you.

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