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Pitaah
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'Pitaah'

By N K Deoshi
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Rudra (Sanjay Dutt) and his wife Paro (Nandita Das) live happily along with their nine-year-old daughter Durga and two sons Luv and Kush in a small feudal village called Shikarpur in North India. The inhabitants of this village have suffered at the hands of their despotic zamindar Thakur Awadh Narayan Singh (Om Puri).

Thakur Awadh Narayan Singh is blinded by his power and inculcates in his two notorious sons Bachchu and Bhola the bacchanalian traits of alcohol and women.

Once,

while the Thakur revels in the mujra at his Shikarpur haveli, Bhola and Bachchu head for Rampur to visit the new girl (Mink) in the brothel. On their way back to Shikarpur, Bhola and Bachchu chance upon a new prey – the nine-year-old Durga. The young Thakurs take their turns to ravish Rudra’s daughter.

When Rudra comes to know about the outrage, he seeks legal redress. With substantial evidence, he gets Bhola and Bachchu arrested. But when the rich and powerful Thakur pulls the strings, bribes the local daroga (Jackie Shroff) Bhola and Bachchu go scot-free.

That forces an otherwise meek Rudra to take up arms against his oppressors. Rest of the film is about Rudra’s struggle to seek justice for his minor daughter and make the notorious thakurs pay the price.

While Mahesh Manjrekar maintains the film’s focus on the father, his fight for justice and his revenge, he doesn’t explore the father-son relationship in the film but for a few touching moments in the songs. Besides, there seems to be a lot of unnecessary violence in the film.

Even some songs in the film break the narrative flow and seem to have been put deliberately to lend some zing to the story. An instance is the mujra song in the police station that shows Jackie and the two Thakurs lost in their drinking revelry while Rudra goes about stalking them.

Clad in a darned kurta and dhoti, Sanjay Dutt looks convincing playing the poor mazdoor who dares to avenge his minor daughter’s rape at the hands of despotic Thakurs. On the other hand, the talented Nandita Das seems to have been wasted in a role that doesn’t give her much chance to show her histrionic prowess.

One actor who impresses is veteran Om Puri. His virile dialogue delivery and enormous emotive range make him a good choice to play the despotic Thakur.

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