Pratikaar

Pratikaar (English: Prevention) is a 1987 Indian Bengali-language vigilante action film written and directed by Prabhat Roy.^[1][2] Produced by Pranab Basu under the banner of Chandima Films,^[3] the film stars Victor Banerjee, Chiranjeet Chakraborty and Debashree Roy in lead roles, while Utpal Dutta, Madhabi Mukherjee, Satabdi Roy, Shakuntala Barua, Sukhen Das, Biplab Chatterjee, Chhaya Devi and Nimu Bhowmik play supporting roles. The screenplay and dialogues were also written by Prabhat Roy. The soundtrack album and background score was composed by Bappi Lahiri,^[4] with the lyrics penned by Gauriprasanna Mazumder. It plots the story of an intelligent student Shankar, who becomes a vigilante after the violent murder of his mother and brutal rape of his sister, by the local goons who kidnaps women and sell them outsides. When he starts avenging, DSP Rajib Chowdhury who is childhood friend of Shankar, comes on the board to investigate the murder mysteries done by Shankar.

Pratikaar marks the second collaboration between Prabhat Roy and Victor Banerjee and the first collaboration between Roy and Chiranjeet Chakraborty. It was an all time blockbuster at the box office and ran more than 42 weeks in theatres. It received a number of positive reviews from critics, with appreciation for its screenplay and direction, performances by the whole casting, stylized action sequences and the massy portrayal of the protagonist in the film. This film created a new image of Victor Banerjee, that of an action hero which became favourable among the masses. In the pre-interval scene, the murder and rape scene was portrayed violently in a Bengali film, for the first time, so the film got A certificate from the Censor Board^[5]

In the year 1988, Pratikaar was remade in Telugu and Tamil as Raktha Tilakam starring Venkatesh and Thaimel Aanai starring Arjun Sarja respectively and later it was remade in 1991 under the same title featuring Anil Kapoor as the protagonist.