Maatr review | Filmfare.com
2.0/5
Rating: 2.5 stars
Director: Ashtar Sayed
Cast: Raveena Tandon, Anurag Arora and Divya Jagdale
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. It’s a theme that has served well on many movies in the past. While Hollywood has had movies like Kill Bill, Thelma and Louise and even the dark The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Hindi films like Khoon Bhari Maang and Zakhmi Aurat have tackled the same subject with full thrills too. Raveena Tandon's comeback film Maatr deals with a similar topic. But sheer darkness and grim treatment of the subject makes this film unique to Hindi cinema. A wounded and shattered mother takes revenge here for her daughter's death. In its treatment and detail, Maatr resembles the work of Korean masters like Park Chan-wook and Kim Ki-duk. It’s certainly got the right idea, depicting a mother and a rape victim as a badass woman. But what starts off with great steam, fizzles out in the end. Perhaps in the hands of a more experienced filmmaker, Maatr would’ve truly been a glorious revenge.
Without wasting time, the first 15 minutes of Maatr establish the heinous crime on which the film's drama is built. A group of politically backed, intoxicated men kidnap and mother daughter duo and rape them both. The daughter succumbs to her injuries but the mother miraculously survives. Many days later, when the misogyny and chauvinism get intolerable, and justice is denied, the mother decides to exact her own revenge. Maatr's writing pays the right amount of attention to detail. The setup, the build up and the reasons that lead up to a regular school teacher turning to violence are all logical and we’ll thought out. While the movie doesn’t offer too much explanation for the mother's appetite for murder, the fact that she wants her rapists to suffer is good enough. But for all its goodness, Maatr's final 20 minutes or so, seem like a terrible hotch potch. The editing turns into a mess. The climax becomes a little too convenient. It just robs the movie of its rightful impact.
Raveena Tandon plays the mother, named Vidya. Her performance is spectacularly dark and the intensity of her character's revenge is shown with effortlessness. Raveena showcases both pain and remorseless aggression with ease. Who needs heroes, when we can have badass women like Raveena's Vidya. But what this film needed was a stronger supporting cast. Divya Jagdale, Anurag Arora and Madhur Mittal get the job done. But with more established faces, this film would’ve created a better impact.
Maatr has some terrific cinematography on offer. Raveena Tandon's performance is ruthlessly dark and delicious. The first half of the film, is well-crafted and conceived too. But when it matters the most, the climax of the story, director Ashtar Sayed and his team drop the ball. Maatr goes from terrific to terribly convenient all too swiftly. Pity, because up until that point, this film had the potential to even win a nod from the master of this genre, Quentin Tarantino.
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