text: Uneven Bollywood drama. Karisma Kapoor is excellent as an Indian woman in Canada who marries a friend (Sanjay Kapoor), has a child, and then visits his family in India only to find they are terrorist warlords. Drama and tragedy ensue, and the film becomes a kind of NOT WITHOUT MY BABY styled thriller. Film is compelling, its few song/dance numbers are uninteresting and needless, the gaity of Bollywood song and dance is really out of character for the intensity of this film's drama, at least once we've left the comforting confines of their Canadian love nest  although one number involving a cameo by the stunning Aishwarya Rai is enjoyably provocative, if ultimately misplaced as well. Likewise, the inclusion of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan as a happy-go-lucky drifter who helps Kapoor in her escape from the clutches of the warlord turns what had been a very serious drama into a silly farce, and it only gets back on his feet when his character  and his fantasies about Rai that generate her cameo dance  are dispensed with. His throw-away comic-book dialog and the silliness of his fight scenes detract from the film's primary gripping drama. The cast is nicely supported by Nana Patekar as the warlord, and the elegant Deepti Naval who is outstanding as his long-suffering wife who finally choses to stand up against him in one of the film's best scenes; Ritu Shivpuri and Rajshree Solanki are also very good as Sanjay's sisters in India, and very pleasing eye candy. But Sanjay himself overacts terribly, especially during obvious ad-libs. The directorial style of writer/director Krishna Wamsi is sloppy, rampant with rough transitions and abrupt cuts, although his camera movement is good. The musical underscore is also quite effective, moody, featuring wordless female voice over a small orchestral ensemble (too bad little if any of that made it onto SHAKTI's soundtrack cd, but Bollywood hasn't yet discovered the value of including score along with songs on their soundtrack albums, at least not in most cases). But SHAKTI is Karisma Kapoor's film, all the way, though, and the intensity of her performance once the film switches to India contrasts nicely with the gentle romance with which she engaged with Sanjay in the initial Canadian scenes. Despite the unevenness of much of the picture, Karisma's performance completely sells the film and solidifies its otherwise inconsistent measures. In a strange way, also, I found the story to be another take on the ostentation of royalty I'd noticed in CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER and MARIE ANTOINETTE, both of which I'd seen just prior, although SHAKTI of course is an entirely different kind of film; but the focus on a dysfunctional royal family  here living in the austerity of terrorism-controlled poverty in India rather than the elegance of Versailles or the massive megalomania of feudal China's Tang Dynasty  whose self-serving seeking of power brings ruin upon many others and forces an uprising of one kind or another provides the film with a notable subtext.