Madras Cafe is a political espionage film set in parts of India and Sri Lanka. The film starts off at the back drop of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister assassination. Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham) confesses the incident in his career that changed the face of Indian politics and his life. Thus begins Madras Cafe in a flashback narration. It dates back to about 3 years before the assassination of a former Indian Prime Minister. The Sri Lankan civil war fought between LTF and the Sri Lankan military was disrupting the politics and economy of the country. Thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. Indian peace-keeping forces were made to intervene leading to a loss of many hundreds of soldiers. After the Indian peace-keeping forces were made to withdraw, Vikram Singh was appointed by a key bureaucrat Siddharth Basu (Robin Dutt (RD)) in the intelligence agency RAW to head operations in Jaffna much to the disparity of his wife Ruby (Raashi Khanna). Thus begins his journey to Sri Lanka and back getting entwined and entangled in unjust military politics. He meets British wars correspondent Jaya Sahni (Nargis Fakhri) who intrepidly wants to reveal the truth and politics behind wars. In Jaffna, Major Vikram Singh is reporting to Bala (Vikram Belawadi). In his peace keeping attempts at Jaffna, Major Singh falls prey to bureaucracy and discovers traitors in his own organization. Whom to trust or not? And how this war leads to the assassination of our Ex-Indian Prime Minister is solely left for Major Singh’s and his team to investigate. How Major Singh manages to uncover the truth at the cost of his own life being trampled is how the movie goes forth.
The writing is fresh and mature at the same time. A very difficult feat to achieve. The screenplay is multifaceted yet comprehensible. The age old belief of a film being good only if it's ambiguous in certain aspects is well broken by the screenplay of Madras Cafe. At no point the audiences are left with loose ends or questions as to what is going on. There is suspense and edge of the seat flow in the movie, yet no anticlimaxes. At one point you want to hold your head and say I wish this didn't happen or this could have been averted. This is what I said.
The performances are given justified screen space which is another very good thing about this movie. There are no star obsessed scenes and each character carves a niche in his or her own screen space. Whether it is the LTE chief Anna (Ajay Rathnam) or the Tamil Rebel, Leena Maria Paul, each character leaves a mark on your mind. There are no songs (Yes!) that tarnish the magnitude of this movie (Thanks a ton for that, I literally cringe when a movie breaks in to a song for no reason). John Abraham does full justice to his role and hats off to him for producing a movie on a sensitive topic like this. Nargis Fakhri and Raashi Khanna have a short yet concise role in the movie and they do full justice to what is required.
Last but not the least, the director Shoojit Sircar's artistic visualization and creativity adds the touch of ultimate class and crispness in this film. It turns out to be a spectacular treat for the audience and you are left with a lasting impact. Not just a must watch, you better-book-your-tickets-right-away-watch. Take a bow, Mr Sircar :)
The story is meshed up between facts and fiction. Still, it manages to paint a very clear picture in our minds about the incident that changed the face of Indian politics over two decades ago. This film is a very bold attempt at political cinema. There are some stories that must be told and some that should not. This film borders at the very edge at the times of censorship and controversies stirring up at the drop of a hat. I just hope more and more filmmakers are encouraged to make such movies. This isn't off beat cinema, this is quality cinema.
Rating: - 4/5
The writing is fresh and mature at the same time. A very difficult feat to achieve. The screenplay is multifaceted yet comprehensible. The age old belief of a film being good only if it's ambiguous in certain aspects is well broken by the screenplay of Madras Cafe. At no point the audiences are left with loose ends or questions as to what is going on. There is suspense and edge of the seat flow in the movie, yet no anticlimaxes. At one point you want to hold your head and say I wish this didn't happen or this could have been averted. This is what I said.
The performances are given justified screen space which is another very good thing about this movie. There are no star obsessed scenes and each character carves a niche in his or her own screen space. Whether it is the LTE chief Anna (Ajay Rathnam) or the Tamil Rebel, Leena Maria Paul, each character leaves a mark on your mind. There are no songs (Yes!) that tarnish the magnitude of this movie (Thanks a ton for that, I literally cringe when a movie breaks in to a song for no reason). John Abraham does full justice to his role and hats off to him for producing a movie on a sensitive topic like this. Nargis Fakhri and Raashi Khanna have a short yet concise role in the movie and they do full justice to what is required.
Last but not the least, the director Shoojit Sircar's artistic visualization and creativity adds the touch of ultimate class and crispness in this film. It turns out to be a spectacular treat for the audience and you are left with a lasting impact. Not just a must watch, you better-book-your-tickets-right-away-watch. Take a bow, Mr Sircar :)
The story is meshed up between facts and fiction. Still, it manages to paint a very clear picture in our minds about the incident that changed the face of Indian politics over two decades ago. This film is a very bold attempt at political cinema. There are some stories that must be told and some that should not. This film borders at the very edge at the times of censorship and controversies stirring up at the drop of a hat. I just hope more and more filmmakers are encouraged to make such movies. This isn't off beat cinema, this is quality cinema.
Rating: - 4/5
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