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Shakeela Movie Review : An underwhelming portrayal of an inspiring real story

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Refrain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks, name calling or inciting hatred against any community. Help us delete comments that do not follow these guidelines by marking them offensive . Let's work together to keep the conversation civil.

Subhabrata Saha 810 days ago

A total flop movie. Absolute trash. One of the worst movies in this world. Strictly not watchable.

ShahajiRaje 1116 days ago

Sympathizers of Shakeela can like this attempt. The script was a hell. It was only a crust of the realities of the B grade world of cinema. Rhea and Pankaj did justice far and wide. Indigestable pace of the movie. Need loads of patience for the climax. One should be Malayalam film critic to understand the real person, Shakeela.

Member 1201 days ago

It is kind of similar to dirty picture. Also Richha Chadda and Pankaj Tripathi kill it at work.

Jeetendra Makhija 1205 days ago

Poor imitation of Dirty Picture.

llakshman 1302 days ago

Visual stories.

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Home » News » Shakeela out on OTT: Here's where you can watch Richa Chadha-starring biopic on streaming »

Shakeela out on OTT: Here's where you can watch Richa Chadha-starring biopic on streaming

Shakeela showcases Richa Chadha bringing to life the complicated legacy of a controversial star.

• Aishwarya Vasudevan

Last Updated: 04.03 PM, Jun 29, 2024

In 2020, Richa Chadha released Shakeela , a biopic of the 1990s adult cinema star who worked in a variety of Indian languages. The film has now entered the world of OTT and is available to stream on ShemarooMe (also on OTTplay Premium). Directed and written by Indrajit Lankesh, the film also features Pankaj Tripathi and Rajeev Pillai in supporting roles.

Shakeela story overview

Shakeela , based on a true story, is a biopic of an adult South Indian actress that follows her journey from her modest upbringing in a small village in southern India to her triumphs and tragedies in her turbulent acting career.

Enjoy 35+ OTTs like ZEE5, LionsgatePlay, Ullu, SunNXT, SonyLIV, Fancode and 250+ Live TV channels at just ₹99.

Earlier, while talking about Shakeela , Richa said in an interview with Latestly that the adult star had no interest in becoming an actress or a famous star. Thus, the question of whether or not to celebrate her achievement is moot, as doing so would require admitting that you had watched those films, something that no one was willing to do.

ALSO READ: Shakeela maker Indrajit Lankesh to launch his son Samarjit

Central issue of the film

Richa further explained that, after a certain point in Shakeela's career, she may have used a body double for every scene because she was someone who knew that people would watch her films but would never admit it publicly. This is the film's central issue, and it's basically society's hypocrisy.

Both the movies and fame were things that Shakeela despised. In order to provide for the family, her mother insisted that she work in this field. She had unfettered access to this world because her mother was a junior artist. Shakeela's motivation, however, was primarily financial gain because she lacked enthusiasm for this line of work. It dawned on her that her role was to assist with expenses and take care of her family. She saw it as merely her duty.

Richa Chadha's approach to the character

Richa also told India Today that the character was difficult to get a handle on. Her only goal was to make Shakeela more relatable, so that viewers could see themselves reflected on TV. When one meets her, they will find that she is a lively, naive, and friendly person. It was important to the actor that her performance reflected this. Shakeela has a tense relationship with her family because they took advantage of her and "milked" her. She aimed for an authentic portrayal of that. Abuse in any form, but especially by a parent—the person one trusts the most—can leave an indelible mark on their lives, which presents its own set of difficulties.

ALSO READ: Netflix India ropes in Shakeela to promote Sex Education season 4

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The Making of 'Mary Poppins

The Biopic Story

The Reel History of Film

Shakeela  (2020)  

Makers of biopics have often used an interview to allow a character to tell their life story. The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe used a psychiatrist’s couch, Wonderland a police interrogation, Chaplin a book editor and My Dinner with Hervé a journalist. Yet this is the first time we can recall that a scriptwriter has hooked his subject up to a machine that compels her to tell the truth. Not in an abstract sense, but an actual character in the movie who refuses to write Shakeela’s biopic until the experiment is complete. Entering a trance-like state, the actress reveals her trials and tribulations in a flat, monotone manner that’s indicative of the way her story is conveyed throughout this film.

After the death of their beloved father, Shakeela and her siblings are uprooted by their mother to her hometown of Cochin. Faced with extreme poverty, Shakeela’s mother decides it is better for her daughter to sell her soul in reel life than for her to sell her body in real life (quote/unquote). So begins Shakeela’s career in South India’s softcore film industry, where her stocks rise when leading star Silk Smitha commits suicide. Now employing a body double for the nude scenes, Shakeela’s films dominate the industry to such an extent that other productions are unable to obtain film crews and face disaster at the box office if released against one of her movies.

Satisfied with Shakeela’s candour, the scriptwriter agrees to write her biopic, having previously boasted he could do so in only a few seconds. Based on the evidence before us, that is exactly what happened. When Shakeela’s perfunctory narration fails to provide impetus, the screenplay enlists an endless parade of excitable newsreaders to mark out the film’s plot points. Their gift for subtlety is matched by the bulk of the supporting cast. As if to provide a counterbalance for this overexuberance, Richa Chadha evokes little passion in her role as Shakeela. 

The film concludes that no-one will pay to see a biopic of Shakeela unless she takes her clothes off. It’s doubtful even that gimmick would help this film at the box-office.

as Shakeela

as Silk Smitha

Silk Smitha committed suicide by hanging herself, not by an overdose.

Shakeela’s cinema rival, Salim, is a fictional character.

Biopic includes an assortment of generic scenes representing Shakeela’s career. However, the only identified film is Party Girls (1995), where Silk Smitha’s famed slap of Shakeela behind the scenes is depicted.

Shakeela Movie Review: Richa Chaddha-Pankaj Tripathi Starrer Is Dreadfully Trite And A Deceitful Pseudo-Biopic Of An Adult Star

Here is our review for shakeela, starring richa chadha, pankaj tripathi, written and directed by indrajit lankesh.

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Shakeela (2020)

Biography, Drama

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Shakeela

In this Shakeela film, Richa Chadda , Rajeev Pillai played the primary leads.

The Shakeela was released in theaters on 25 Dec 2020.

The Shakeela was directed by Indrajit Lankesh

Movies like The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) , Veera Dheera Sooran (Part 2) , Love Insurance Kompany (LIK) and others in a similar vein had the same genre but quite different stories.

The cinematography for Shakeela was shot by Santosh Rai .

The movie Shakeela belonged to the Biography,Drama, genre.

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Directed by Indrajit Lankesh

Not a Porn Star

A biopic based on the life of adult movie star Shakeela, who ruled the South Indian film industry for over two decades and starred in many controversial and bold films.

Richa Chadha Pankaj Tripathi Rajeev Ravindranathan Sheeva Rana Ester Noronha Rajeev Pillai Kajol Chugh Vicky Kadian Saurabh Soni

Director Director

Indrajit Lankesh

Producers Producers

Sundeep Malani Sahil Nanwani Sammy Nanwani

Writers Writers

Indrajit Lankesh Rohan A. Bajaj Sunil Kumar Agarwal

Editors Editors

Ballu Saluja KM Prakash

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Sunil Kumar Agrawal

Stunts Stunts

Different Danny

Choreography Choreography

Vishnu Deva Murali Krishna

Composers Composers

Veer Samarth Harmeet Singh Manmeet Singh

Songs Songs

Rakesh Kumar Pal

Costume Design Costume Design

Deepa Prashanth

Sammys Magic Cinema Yoddhas Entertainment

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Hindi Telugu Kannada Tamil Malayalam

Romance Drama

Releases by Date

25 dec 2020, releases by country.

• Theatrical A

126 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Suraiya 🌝 ★★

I love Richa Chada, but this felt too flat. Annoyingly flat. But I still stand by the concept, maybe could've been done better. Much love to Richa Chada, ❤️

-1★ for the flat acting. -1★ for being unnecessarily dramatic when not required. -1★ for the poor development of such an amazing concept.

Review by NaaVeeN ★

Utter crap ( No offense to Shakeela ma'am) Cleavage scenes, introduction to all the characters & flat narration of Shakeela's life is what this movie offers in the name of a Biopic. Whole movie was plain and boring. Worst - Direction, Screenplay. Very bad casting ( supporting roles ) Pankaj Tripathi is a wasted character even though he has more screen time.

Problem with Indian biopics is it is never a biopic it is either a tribute or else they will fill it with lies. Indians should stop making Biopics, they just spoil the essence of that character. Seriously i hated the director so much. Richa Chadda tries her best but all in vain.

Sorry Shakeela ma'am for this disappointing movie.

Review by Deepak Sabat ½

'Shakeela' is a very bad & cliche remake.It provides you nothing specific about the life of 'Shakeela' and just bore you throughout the films.Character development is extremely weak & the movie runs in snail's pace.'Indrajit Lankesh' direction is very ordinary and doesn't impress you at all.'Ricchaa Chaddaa' in no way resembles Shakeela & gives a very boring & lame performance.The only good thing about the film is 'Pankaj Tripathi' Sir's screen presence.Though its the biopic of Shakeela but its his moments that will make you feel a little enjoyable.But just because of his limited screen space you can't survive this whole bad film.This 1/2 star is for Pankaj Tripathi Sir.Anyways just skip it.

Review by 𝗡 𝗜 𝗞 𝗛 𝗜 𝗟 🍿 ★★★

Lacks emotional depth and novelty. Watchable at best.

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• Movie - Shakeela - 2020

Shakeela  (2020)  شاكيلا

• 126 minutes
• Release Date: 24 December 2020 (United Arab Emirates) (more)
• Genre: Drama (more)

A biopic that tells the story of Shakeela, the adult film star who made her name at the tender age of 18 as she started acting in softcore porn films to overcome her poor upbringing, rising to ...Read more prominence and ruling over the film industry in South India by the late 90s.

• Indrajit Lankesh (Director)
• Sunil Kumar Agrawal (Writer)
• Rohit G. Banawlikar ()
• Pankaj Tripathi
• Richa Chadha
• Kajol Chugh
• Rajeev Pillai
• Vicky Kadian
• Ester Noronha

Watch Online

• 2016 - Series

• Sheeva Rana
• Kafeel Jafri
• Ahaana Kochar
• Valerian Menezes
• Saurabh Soni

A biopic that tells the story of Shakeela, the adult film star who made her name at the tender age of 18 as she started acting in softcore porn films to overcome her poor ...Read more upbringing, rising to prominence and ruling over the film industry in South India by the late 90s.

• Release Date:
• United Arab Emirates [ 24 December 2020 ]
• Oman [ 31 December 2020 ]
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Shakeela Reviews

Soul-crushingly boring and frustrating.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 31, 2020

A biopic based on the life of adult star Shakeela, who ruled the South Indian film industry for over two decades. The film features Richa Chadha in the lead role. Shakeela featuring Richa Chadda and Pankaj Tripathi is not currently available to stream, rent, or buy but you can add it to your want to see list for updates. It's a drama and romance movie with a low IMDb audience rating of 3.4 (722 votes).

Where to Watch

More information onshakeela, indrajit lankesh, richa chadda, pankaj tripathi.

Silk Smitha

Sheeva Rana

Ester noronha.

Young Shakeela

Kajol Chugh

Sahil nanwani, sammy nanwani, sunil kumar agarwal, harmeet singh, manmeet singh, veer samarth.

Ratings & Reviews

The Reelgood Score is a comprehensive weighted index designed to evaluate movie & TV quality, deriving its value from a blend of Reelgood user engagement, external ratings metrics expressed through content popularity, and user feedback, including ratings such as "loved," "liked," and "disliked." The score is presented on a scale from 1 to 100, where 100 signifies content that is highly esteemed and positively rated within the community.

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Cast & Crew for Shakeela

'Shakeela' movie review: A wasted opportunity

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Language: Hindi

Director: Indrajit Lankesh

Cast: Richa Chadda, Pankaj Tripathi, Kajol Chugh, Ester Noronha

Rating: 2/5

When the trailer of 'Shakeela' dropped recently, many questioned the need for a biopic on a yesteryear soft-porn star. Well, if biopics are stories of popular personalities, then Shakeela's life definitely deserved a retelling on the big screen.

Today, the Malayalam film industry is one of the finest in the country. Since the last decade, the industry has enjoyed a consistent upward spiral. Yet, a marginal ignorant audience still judges it by its soft-porn boom witnessed in the 90s. The sole reason for it being Shakeela and her wave, popularly known as the 'Shakeela Tharangam'.

It was an unprecedented rise of a woman, who shed her inhibitions in life and clothes on screen, to strip the sex-starved men of all their money. It didn't matter to them if their wallets went empty as they got a high flooding the theatres screening Shakeela's films.

The soft-porn films upstaged the mainstream Malayalam industry, a phenomenon unheard of in India till then. What were the factors that led to this trend? How was the quality of mainstream content? Were there repercussions for the people in the industry and the public? What does it tell about the community's conflicted association with sex?

Sadly, the film, made by Indrajit Lankesh -- who predominantly makes Kannada films -- scratches just the surface of this exciting premise.

' Shakeela ', starring Richa Chadda and Pankaj Tripathi, is a bore-fest. The film is a wannabe 'Dirty Picture'. Now, that film, anchored by a terrific Vidya Balan, was on 'Silk Smitha', a sex symbol in the 80s.

Silk, unlike Shakeela, graduated to the mainstream set up and shared screen space with the biggest of stars from the South. So it's a much broader career compared to Shakeela, giving an advantage to the makers of 'Dirty Picture'. Also, the film had all the ingredients of a superb 'masala' entertainer. Great acting, catchy music and solid narration, everything that ' Shakeela ' lacks.

If popular narratives are to be believed, then Shakeela was proud of her 'liberated' outlook to life but here, the film follows the predictable template a struggling woman's rise in the film industry. Even if Indrajit's intentions are noble, his execution falters. The transformation is the most important aspect in these kinds of films. Here, Indrajit buries Shakeela's rise under a dull song.

There is a brilliant scene. Unable to overcome the humiliations in the early phase of her career, Shakeela nearly kills herself before hearing the news of Silk's suicide. The film should have taken off from this point. But, it just becomes a routine face-off between a cornered actress and a toxic male superstar.

Indrajit also gets the backdrop wrong. Shakeela, shown hailing from rural Kerala, moves to Cochin (now Kochi). But some scenes take place on the streets of Bengaluru. Also, did the film have to be in Hindi? It appears bizarre as only the main actors speak Hindi while you hear the rest speak Malayalam in the background. The inconsistency in language is jarring.

Gifted actors like Pankaj Tripathi and Richa Chadda go through the chores with nothing extraordinary to do. A story with many interesting shades had to be more pulpy and gripping.

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Shakeela Review: Biopic Starring Richa Chadha Is Soulless And Tone-Deaf

Shakeela review: neither richa nor pankaj tripathi can clean up the dreary mess. the two stars are for the two actors, none for the film..

Cast : Richa Chadha, Pankaj Tripathi

Director : Indrajit Lankesh

Rating : 2 stars (out of 5)

The inexplicable decision to send the titular protagonist into "a dream state" in order to get her to come clean about her life and work and the rather strange choice of Richa Chadha to play the role of a 1990s Malayali softcore adult actress are only two of the many things that Shakeela , written and directed by Indrajit Lankesh, gets horribly wrong. But these are bad enough. They undermine the film irretrievably.

Not that Richa Chadha is a write-off. In the scenes that matter, she is pretty strong. She conveys the predicament of the eponymous protagonist, a woman caught between an exploitative industry and a manipulative mother, with considerable force.

The writing, however, is so pedestrian and predictable that the central character - a sex symbol who gets the goat of the reigning male superstar by asserting her right to do her own thing, besides sparking a shrill, hypocritical, career-stymieing reaction from a morally ambivalent society that laps up her titillating films but does not have the courage to own up to its obsession with her - does not acquire the layers that might have lent the portrayal genuine heft.

Shakeela , which has been released in theatres this Christmas Day, is both soulless and tone-deaf although parts of it touch upon the still-relevant theme of male domination over the entertainment industry. Shakeela is constantly judged and pilloried because she isn't part of movies that families can watch together. Worse, she earns the wrath of an industry A-lister by daring to spurn his advances.

The relationship between Shakeela and her body double Suhana, played by Ester Noronha, constitutes a significant parallel track that would have been infinitely better served had the writer-director seen percentage in diving a little deeper into it. But because it remains only an incidental plot detail, it fails assume a logic of its own and help in lifting the film out of its morass of mediocrity. The Shakeela-Suhana sub-plot loses its way in a hackneyed do-jism-ek-jaan (two bodies one soul) spiel about female bonding, professional inter-dependence and betrayal.

The Shakeela cast has Pankaj Tripathi, too. He plays a supercilious yet insecure superstar who does not take too kindly to Shakeela's meteoric rise as a box-office star after the suicide of the super-successful Silk Smitha. He emerges as the villain in her life.

As always, Tripathi does a great deal with his face, eyes and body postures - that in itself is a delight to watch. In a better film, it would have worked wonders. In Shakeela, there is a complete disconnect between what the actor is capable of delivering and what the film is able to extract from him.

Shakeela has a scene in which the protagonist, who is still a nobody, gets a walk-on part in a Silk Smitha film. The nervous girl spills fruit juice on the senior actress and is promptly slapped. Shakeela swallows her pride and carries on regardless. She can't afford to take umbrage. Ironically, Silk Smitha's untimely death creates a vacuum in the sexploitation movie space and she moves in and makes hay over a period of a whole decade.

After a trashy dance number that goes with the opening credits - Chadha's suggestive moves are meant to tell the audience what kind of films Shakeela did at the height of her acting career, not to indicate what this film is going to be like - we jump to 1999 and street protests against her films. " Shakeela hatao, cinema bachao, Kerala bachao ," the placards read. Angry slogans are raised against and her detractors move in to strike.

Cut to Shakeel's conversation with a patronising writer who has been engaged to pen the story of her chequered career. She wants to break away from the B-movie rut and act in a film that will allow her to demonstrate that there is more to her than just sleaze and skin show. The man talks down to Shakeela. She takes it in her stride. She is a woman who has had success, but respect has eluded her. When she agrees to share her life story on the writer's terms, she is subjected to a narco test as she narrates her tale and, with a doctor in attendance, the writer takes notes.

A bulk of the film is made up of flashbacks. The character's voice links one segment of the story to the other, but the pitching of the narration is marred by inconsistencies. At times, Shakeela's voice resembles a murmur because she is in a semi-conscious state. At others, it turns into a full-throated commentary. The background score, too, is overly intrusive.

The flashbacks reveal Shakeela's childhood in a verdant coastal village. She is happy as long as her indigent fisherman-father is around her. The man, afflicted with tuberculosis, has to take care of a large family, which includes his wife, a former junior artiste who laments the opportunities she has lost, and six daughters. Shakeela is the eldest.

Her acting talent is revealed early in life. In school, she plays Draupadi in a play and wins a trophy. By the time she gets home to share her joy, her life has changed and the family is forced to relocate to Cochin. Once there, her ambitious mother pushes her into the shady world of C-grade movies. The girl has to keep going because she is the family's sole breadwinner.

Matters come to a head when a spurt in rape cases in the state is blamed on the films that Shakeela does. The moral police sharpen their knives and the media goes after her hammer and tongs. Left to fend for herself, she begins to feel the heat.

Instead of being what it promises to be - an exploration of the wages of stardom in an exploitative industry - Shakeela turns into a patchy melodrama involving a childhood sweetheart (Rajeev Pillai) who encourages the woman to reinvent herself and fight.

Eventually, the climactic clash is between a Shakeela biopic and the top male superstar's latest cop drama. But even in success - Shakeela, at the peak of her career, spawns a genre of her own - she is repeatedly reminded that there is a price to be paid.

Shakeela is a woman in a man's world: that is the point that the film wants to make. But it ties itself up in knots in trying to get the point across. Neither Richa Chadha nor Pankaj Tripathi can clean up the dreary mess. The two stars are for the two actors. There's none for the film.

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