A runofthemill revenge saga
MAATR Direction: Ashtar Sayed Actors: Raveena Tandon, Anurag Arora Rating:
When a top politician says “Aurat hai... kya kar legi?”, referring to Raveena Tandon’s character, you know he will soon have to eat his words.
Because Maatr is one of those films eager to cash in on the ‘women-centric’ trend in Bollywood. Sadly, they forget that even with dollops of ‘stree shakti’, you still need a story.
Here’s theirs: An idealistic Delhi school teacher and doting mother named Vidya Chauhan (Tandon) has a horrid husband. While trying her best to deal with the world with a smile, she and her daughter are gangraped. The chief minister’s son is among the culprits.
The investigating officer (Anurag Arora) buckles under pressure but he underestimates Vidya’s rage. She will not stop until she has revenge.
Playing to the gallery, director Ashtar Sayed chooses Delhi and the politician-criminal-police nexus as his backdrop, much like Pink.
It’s interesting that they should add the daughter — I guess rape is more easily blameless if there’s a child involved.
Maatr, then, is the story of a vengeful mother.
To be fair, the film handles the subject of rape with subtlety. The real problem is that the story says nothing new, and goes nowhere.
As a result, even with all the emotion, the movie starts to get repetitive. Tandon begins to feel like the female version of Suniel Shetty from Mohra, with less swagger. The criminals are all clichés with no depth.
Tandon does her best; she’s effective in parts. You can’t help feeling that she deserved better than a run-of-the-mill revenge saga.