Maatr: Rape drama lacking teeth

Cast: Raveena Tandon, Alisha Khan, Madhur Mittal, Divya Jagdale, Anurag Arora, Rushad Rana, Saleem Khan, Shalee Goel

Rated: 4/10

Gangrape is a troubling subject on screen or otherwise. So you would have thought, Raveena Tandon, the Mast-mast girl on a comeback trail as an aged prima donna, would have dealt with the subject that was more real than Maatr.

Girdling around the story of a mother-daughter gangrape in a Delhi farmhouse in which her daughter is killed and she barely survives, the film freezes you with its starkness of the incident. But after that it becomes a victim of Box Office viability and skids into a rape and revenge drama that lacks the authenticity that should come with such an issue.

Not that Raveena is any less on the screen but this one was not about her, it was about the issue of gangrape, a scourge of society that is only growing, and with impunity.

Yes, the film does show you how weak our systems are to deal with rape, how corrupt, cruel and callous our politicians can be, how the police machinery continues to be the handmaiden of such political masters. But all this and much more that surrounds the subject, is given a wishy-washy display, not really delving into any of it.

Rather sadly, it annoyingly strays into the realm of taking justice into your own hands and a killing spree that may have killed the goons but goes on to kill the film too.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 23 April, 2017