Bardaasht

Synopsis

Aditya Shrivastav (Bobby Deol) is a court martialled army officer. He has a brother, Anuj (Ritesh Deshmukh). Anuj gets angry at Aditya one day and runs away. ACP Yashwant Thakur (Rahul Dev) helps Aditya find Anuj and later tells him that Anuj was killed in an encounter.

Aditya reads a police report which states that Anuj was running away with drugs and was shot dead on the spot. Aditya can't quite believe this so he investigates it. He later meets Ramona (Tara Sharma), who reveals that ACP Yashwant Thakur and his two other police officers brutally killed Anuj for no apparent reason and lied to cover it up.

Aditya wants to take the matter to court and chooses Payal (Lara Dutta) as his lawyer. However, after losing the case, Aditya decides to take matters into his own hands by holding and torturing the three captives until they confess their crime. He is successful and, having secretly recorded this evidence, shows it to the police commissioner; thus avenging his brother's death. The last scene shows Aditya performing final rites of Anuj.

Cast

Critical reception

Released in April 2004 Bardaasht received acclaimed critical reception. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama praised Bobby Deol's performance and wrote "BARDAASHT is a triumph for Bobby Deol, who takes full advantage of the role offered to him and gives his best shot. He displays the gamut of emotions like a seasoned performer and delivers a knock-out performance. In fact, it won't be wrong to state that this is amongst Bobby's best performance to date!" Critic Subash K Jha praised the film wrote "At a time when the film industry is busy showcasing cops as romanticised idealistic super-heroes, "Bardaasht" takes a cynical view of the police force.But the film portrays the reality. Every day law-abiding god-fearing citizen gets a taste of the criminalisation of the police force." Jha praises Deol's performance and writes "Bobby Deol, who plays the lead role, drops his habitually languorous look and laidback demeanour to deliver a performance of substantial velocity. Deol makes the best of his silently simmering and suffering army man-turned-civilian role. As Aditya Shrivastava, Bobby is what his brother Sunny has repeatedly played in films like "Arjun" and "Ghayal". But Bobby gives the seething role his own spin." Rediff.com praises Bardaasht and writes "Bardaasht is pretty strong on the performance front. Bobby Deol does a good job. Look out for him in the scene where he sees his kid brother's dead body. His body language is frail, broken and numb" citing Deol's power-packed performance.