Madras Cafe Review : - A must, must watch

     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

Gangs of Wasseypur

I am completely bowled over with the masterpiece Gangs of Wasseypur, created by the ace director Anurag Kashyap. I am not including this under movie review because I can’t write an unbiased opinion and feedback over this movie. This is a personal post dedicated to a milestone in innovative Indian cinema. Consider this as a fan babbling, you will know why once you read the post. Also what makes me proud is that the movie is completely desi. I can be assured I don’t have to look out to Hollywood directors for entertainment or refer Global Masterpieces like Persian and Iranian for substance. This film freaking has it all. It’s entertaining, engaging, raw, original, real and simply superb.

The casting:-

In the era of making movies where the only success formula is to have A list actors and their controversies, superheroes and their gadgets, Anurag Kashyap has managed to get memorable performances out of little known to unknown actors. How many of us really know the background of the stone hearted puppeteer of the revenge saga Ramadhir Singh? Google him and you will know what gives him an amazing nonchalant style of acting which makes him the most feared character at the same time in his first movie. Manoj Bajpai as Sardar Khan gave an engaging performance in the first half of the movie. He had made an unspoken statement which marked his territory as the ultimate baddie, who had taken the audience by storm with his character Bhiku Mhatre in Satya. The movie simply does justice to him. Nawazuddin siddiqui, who plays Faisal Khan, pulls of the entire second part of the movie by stepping into the shoes of an actor like Manoj Bajpai. Every character in the first and the second part of the movie remains etched in your mind. Starting from the man whose murder started it all, Piyush Mishra, the sutradhar of the saga, the merciless Ehsaan Quereshi who is a butcher and the accomplice of Ramadhir Singh, the policemen, the guy who supplied guns without saying a single dialogue in the movie, the gunmen, the accomplices, the strong and bold women like the dutiful begum Nagma Khatoon, femme fatale Durga and Mohsina the pillar of strength for Faisal Khan, Zeishan Quadri who plays the semi dumb and dangerous goon Definite, perpendicular and tangent are memorable in their tiny roles, the guy who was shot after getting his head shaved and just about everyone. The casting is exhaustive but fits every role perfectly. The actors deliver performances so real and perfect, that you almost feel like you are a part of the V for vendetta saga.

The Locations and Styling:-

Again, this movie was entirely shot in remote locations of Varanasi, Bihar and Chunnar and not Manhattan or Paris. The locations and sets are few and distinct. When screenplay moves swiftly across the streets of “Dhanbad”, you feel getting involved into the movie. With the gradual progression of eras from introduction of Dhanbad in the 1940s to the current situation depicted in 2000s.  The styling has been done perfectly and the generation leaps are introduced in the natural flow of the movie. The film posters stuck on walls, movie theatres, youngsters mimicking trends of the actors and real life using reel life dialogues and theories give out some hilarious moments to watch out. When Nawazuddin is out to kill the guy who shot his father, he shaves the guy’s head and makes him wear aviators. Later on shoots him after a dialogue and a laugh of his share saying Shakaal lag raha hai be.

Music:-

Nope this movie has no item song, who’s who of music industry or promotion tracks sung by Mika Singh. Sneha Khanvilkar has created unconventional music of violent and sexual innuendos for every turning point in the film. The music is not thrown in and will not be appealing as standalone music tracks. The music is made for the story and not the other way round, which is what happens in most of the Hindi movies. Teri keh ke lunga, Womaniya, Hunter, Ik Bagal in both the parts of the movie, Jiya tu at the end of the first part and Soona kar ke songs were blended perfectly into the first part of the movie. In the second part, not too much of variety in the songs but check out Chee chaa ledar song sung by a 12 year old kid who sings in trains, pitched in at the perfect moment of chasing depicting the meaning of the song.

The dialogues, screenplay, story and script:-

Oh the dialogues!!!!! I still can’t stop laughing over the fine dialogues of the movies. I am not even embarrassed to say that probably I was the only girl in the theatre who understood and laughed out loud at every dialogue of the movie. Needless to say there were only couple of girls there. Anyways. Moving on. I can’t mention any of the dialogues here, you must watch the movie and I won’t let out any of the pearls for sure.  The dialogues are not metaphors or hyperboles. They are simply spoken with no thought or expression. The dialogues are raw and in your face making you gawk with your mouth wide open. The thought is Oh man did he just say this??? The body language of the actors is so natural that it is difficult to believe that they are acting and not really killing people. Blood spurting, magazines exhausting and the Kattas swivelling and shooting bullets will leave you with a realing impact. The lengths of the movies are a little disappointing but it is so engaging that the audience are going to realize when they run out of popcorns and colas. A crispier editing would have been a saviour for the average movie goer who likes to be simply entertained. Either ways, the scenes have been fitted perfectly like pieces of a jigsaw going from present to past which keeps moving from the first part and continues to the 2^nd reaching a point where the 1^st part started. Simply beautiful.  The Dhanbad coal mafia story woven around the families which are reeling under the impact of the Qureshis and Pathans rivalry causing series of murders and vengeful tactics is the least expected entertaining story you can expect.

Okay, so now that I have said enough about the Oh so awesome movies, you go and watch it now. And if you haven’t even seen the first part yet, go for a double whammy watching both the parts on the same day. I am planning to, AGAIN. Anybody want to join??? ;)

Rating:- 4/5