2 weeks after the release of ’Chennai Express’, released ’Madras Cafe’, a political espionage thriller, and its a true political thriller having the purest soul, without gaanas and naachs, and without any bollywoodishness, simply a true depiction, just like Hollywood movies have. If you take my word, do watch it once in theater. Mass movie lovers, stay away from it, just stick to your likes, and good movie lovers, go ahead and watch this true fictional account of Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
A group is formed in North East Sri Lanka due to the killings of Srilankans tamil by the original ethnic sinhalese group. This new group called LTF, headed by Anna Bhaskaran (Ajay Rathnam) started counter attacking and took hold of north east Srilanka city Jaffna, and started demanding freedom. Indian government wants to settle the issues of daily killings in Sri Lanka beacuse the PM (Sanjay Gurbaxani) wants the best of Tamilians and want to stop the grueling war between the Srilankan tamils and other srilankan nationals. A RAW team is already heading the covert operation in Srilanka. Then they send Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham) to the front to deal and ensure that peace process will follow but instead he got framed by other RAW agent and his boss (Prakash Belawadi) who involves in the conspiracy with LTF. And the films led to the assassination of Indian PM when he was not in power by the LTF group, since as per them he is a threat to their cause, and all this planning was done in a fictional place called ’Madras Cafe’ in Singapore. What was the actuals behind this assassination, and how and what was the done, or what was the truth is the basic story of this movie.
I would say a wonderful movie has been made in bollywood , a true political thriller with edge-of-the-seat actions. Its not like ’Ek Tha Tiger’ and such other movies, but its more like hollywood style political thriller, point-to-point with real actions. I dont know point-to-point details about the actual incident on which the movie is based, but many things we all knew, and thats what made the movie authentic. The movie has a raw feel (not raw as in R&AW), wonderful camera work (Kamaljeet Negi), wonderfully shot, paced nicely, and shot in more of a documentary style instead of masala film style. Here’s an Indian answer to ’The Hurt Locker’ or’Zero Dark Thirty’ or many such movies, kudos to the great director in making SHOOJIT SIRCAR. This is his 3rd movie and he is the same director who has made a comedy, successful and wonderful film ’Vicky Donor’, unbelievable, it seems we have one more champ of a director, who can rise in comedy and thriller equally. What a picturisation and thinking, great work.
Then you have a team of great actors or you can say that you have directed them well. JOHN ABRAHAM, one of the finest actor Bollywood has, and he dons the role perfectly, looking a true agent as the character demands, no show-off just the actual agent work. And he is well supported by other actors, esp I must mention the villian, played by Prakash Belawadi, he is too good for his ’double-cross’ role. Siddharth Basu, the quiz master also done good job as RAW chief. Nargis Fakhri’s role was small but she looks better here than Rockstar, she looks so natural as British Indian. The other heroine Rashi Khanna was also good in the role of John’s wife. Alongwith these names, all other small actors who played the remaining roles were also good, blended in the movie, played exactly like their exact opposites. Sanjay Gurbaxani looks so similar in demeanour playing the role of the India’s youngest PM, acted very nicely to the role he was given. Movie is around 2 hrs of duration, and without any moment of boringness.
So go and watch this movie if you haven’t, and watch it in theaters, don’t wait for TV release, appreciate the good cinema and good movie-makers and encourage them. But remember to avoid Morning shows where you’ll mostly found the mass-movie lovers who can say this to you "I have seen 50 movies in theaters, and this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen" (He was sittiing in my adjacent seat, these guys are the one who made Dabangg, etc type movies a blockbuster, so avoid them, YES THIS MOVIE IS CERTAINLY NOT EVERYBODY’s CUP OF TEA/COFFEE... 4/5
GRuchirG.
Jai Raam ji ki :)