If the chosen subject is the only thing that matters, then one can go on giving as many stars and ratings to MAATR for its theme, yet again trying to raise a timely social alarm with all noble intensions. However if you are supposed to rate it as a film then it strangely turns out to be so weak, which was certainly not expected considering the pre-release hype created by the ‘censor banning’ issue.
Yes, MAATR might have gone through some heavy questionable editing instructed by the censors affecting its major scenes. But the revenge planned and executed later in the film is so illogical and childish that it would have never made any dent even if the censors had passed the film without a single act.
Interestingly, though MAATR has many major shortcomings in terms of characterizations, presentation and the important story progression. But I will like to state only one, which would be enough to give you an idea about the minimum serious thinking behind the film made with the sole vision to win over the viewers with some kind of shock-treatment in the rape and revenge sequences and nothing else.
(Spoiler’s Ahead)
A middle aged mother (Raveena) and her young school going daughter get abducted and brutally raped by a group of boys led by the son of a minister. The young girl dies but the mother survives to suffer the tragic trauma of facing an unconcerned-coward husband, corrupted system and ‘unconcerned Police officers’ more interested in saving their jobs instead of grilling the culprits.
So she decides to go for revenge killing them one by one reminding you of films like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, ZAKHMI AURAT, BANDIT QUEEN, PRATIGHAT and many more from the last millennium based on the similar plots.
The mother here is a school teacher in the same institution where her daughter used to study, but the director and his writers are simply not interested in showing any sequence related with the school, its principal, the fellow teachers, the students or else, post such a major incident happening in the life of their fellow teacher and her daughter. And the mother simply joins back and starts teaching her assigned class just like that.
Next, the teacher finds a young classmate of her daughter to be familiar with one of those rapist boys and digging more into it learns that the poor girl is being regularly physically harassed (read raped) by that boy in hotel rooms since many weeks.
And from here onwards, in a film titled MAATR (meaning mother), the lady doesn’t help that girl at all, doesn’t see her own daughter in the face of that victim girl, doesn’t inform the principal about such a crude crime being committed with one of their own students since weeks, doesn’t go to police taking the girl along, doesn’t call her parents to inform about the same……… but instead uses that unaware girl to take her own revenge like a blindly mean lady betraying her selfishly.
Once again sending her to a hotel with that inhuman criminal, the mother not only plans the boy’s murder through the teenaged girl but also doesn’t even bother about her getting caught by the police, crying beside his dead body in a compromising state in the hotel room itself.
Honestly if that is what the writer-director wished to convey as the meaning of the word MAATR or MOTHER, as a lady who doesn’t care about ruining the life of another young girl of her daughter’s age for taking her own revenge, then I am really sorry and would not really like to comment upon the writing or the thought-process any further.
Hence MAATR just has Raveena Tandon giving her best to a pretty badly conceived role of an emotional, brave mother, but I really wish she had questioned the writers about the silly insertion in it victimizing ‘another still alive daughter of a different family’.
With none of the supporting actors making a mark in this crudely over dramatic film ending with another absurd sequence like a typical Bollywood revenge saga, MAATR can easily be described as a flawed film that faintly tries to raise a voice against a sickening social curse, that was much impactfully presented in Raveena's JAAGO (2004).
But beside the weak presentation, I was also really sad to see the unmissable poetry of Munawwar Rana neither promoted nor used in any effective or appreciable manner in a film titled MAATR.
In fact this can easily be quoted as the only positive outcome of the project as it introduces you to a unique and widely acclaimed, lifetime creation of the poet titled MAA. So it’s the book you should be going for instead of the film as my sincere recommendation.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
