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Shastra

Shastra follows the well-trend and hackneyed vendetta path without any attempt at newness, either in its story line or its presentation. Sunil Shetty's parents have been killed and his father's bodyguard (Danny Denzongpa) arrested, when Sunil was a child. A kindly guardian keeps the truth from Sunil. With this part of the story on hold, the film shifts focus to Sunil in college, who is being unceasingly chased by his class-mate Anjali Jathar who is madly in love with him. This takes care of the song angle.

When Sunil discovers the truth about his parents death, he wants to kill Danny. But before he can do so, Danny convinces him that he (Danny) has been wrongly implicated in the crime and he too is in search of the killers. Danny and Sunil join hands to do so.

While this is going on the film runs on a parallel track with Anjali's father (Anupam Kher) being hassled by a thug in Khandala (Mohan Joshi) who wants to buy out Anupam's casino.

Simultaneously another angle being explored is the one of Anupam's driver (Mushtaque Khan) who is in love with Kunika. Whose brother doesn't approve of the match. This is what is popularly known as the comedy track, a must in Hindi films.

If all this makes for a rather convulated story, it also makes tor tedious watching. As Danny and Sunil hunt for the killers, they have to get past several lesser villains and each one means a new action sequence. For some strange reason the direction dwells on all these action scenes at length and when it finally comes to the climax where Sunil confronts the main villain and killer of his parents (Mohan Joshi) he finishes off their fight in a jiffy. Having built up the whole film to this point, this anticlimax leaves the viewer feeling dissatisfied.

Performancewise, Sunil Shetty is, as usual, competent in action but can do little else. Anjali Jathar is a misfist as a heroine. She has neither the looks, figure or histrionics to be a star. Mushtaque Khan is the highlight of the film, specially in the scenes in which he goes to Anjali's college posing as her father. Everyone else Anupam Kher, Mohan Joshi, Danny and Farida Jalal are victims of limited characterisations by the writer Rumi Jaffrey.

Music by Aadesh Srivastava is fairly foot-tapping. The popular Paro song though is a disappointment in the film.

Shastra is technically sound with good cinematography. It is all very well to use soft focus, filters, back lights and slow motion, but unless it is being used in a scene that makes sense it isn't effective. And that is exactly the problem with Shastra. It doesn't make sense.