Madras Cafe Review

One Line Review: A heroic hitherto unexplored cinematic endeavor to highlight some poignant memories in Indian political history.

Positive Points: Matchless direction, Superficial art direction, Elite cinematography, Tight-lipped performance by Nargis Fakhri, Realistic background settings enlivening historical era.

Negative Points: Non-enticing background score.

Plot: Having its roots dipped in the 1980's era, the story narrates about Sri Lankan civil war regarding the separatism issue. Vikram Singh (John Abraham), an Indian Intelligence officer appointed by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), is assigned a clandestine political mission to Sri Lanka. Vikram and his team is delegated the task of lending support to the opposition party against Anna Bhaskaran (Ajay Ratnam), the militant leader. A galactic issue is discovered by the Intelligence officer Vikram Singh, as he begins his surreptitious operation along with the goal in his mind to disrupt the rebel group. RAW agent Vikram gestates a dicey conspiracy of assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister. The film uncovers an array of events pertaining to the political occurrences in Sri Lanka and India invited by this cabal.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: Nail-biting events and unfolding of a dodgy political conspiracy is what the ace director Shoojit Sircar and the producer John Abraham have catered the audience with. The director has wonderfully carved down the historical real happenings with a gripping screenplay by Somnath Dey and Shubhendu Bhattacharya. Sri Lankan civil war at its backdrop, the tale twirls around the grave topic of terrorism and illustrates the way the protagonist is seizured in the unwanted political turmoil. Sircar had enliven a political drama that was lost amidst the street-side hoary gangsta depictions and irksome romantic chronicles.

The courageous producer-director duo had very well designed an excellent pseudo-history spiral by achieving a concoction of history and fantasy. Predominantly, the movie targets at rendering a tragic assassination of a great Indian political leader in the year 1991. There is no double opinion that the direction is unparalleled and awesome, with capturing minute nitty-gritty of the story. The movie ensures a feast for all those in search of an out and out war-flick devoid of entertainment value. This flick can merely be fit into an espionage thriller with all the war elements. The first half of the movie devotes time in establishing the plot and hence, may sometimes sound dull. However, the second half interweaves a great turn in the story imparting emotions and thus, describes well the clutches of violent historical Sri Lankan civil war, in which thousands of Tamilians had to loose their lives. The adorable cinematography and art direction bring out the essence of real-political world along with the unmatched background settings that seemed to be from historical era. The director had excellently presented the restless lives of characters, their pursuit for seeking comfort and the situations packed with anxiety. Still, there was a room for improvement in the context of background score and music.

Performance: A tragic grandeur is what John Abraham seems at delivering with his speechless performance. The muscular-spectacular John has shined well in his role, proving authentic. Nargis Fakhri has created wonders with her eye-brow raising performance as an international reporter. The beauty had portrayed her character with amazing intensity and proved the spunk hidden inside her.

The other star-cast like Ajay Ratnam, Siddartha Basu, Prakash Belawadi and Rashi Khanna essayed their respective roles in an appreciative manner.

Music: Being a noire political thriller, the music had nothing to do with this movie. Still, the film witnessed an average music tracks that can't be remembered for a long time and will taste only if seen with the flow of the story.

Final Verdict: This is the movie underlining the dark and deep chapter in the Indian political history with an agonizing end. It strives at keeping aside the elixir of pop culture and make the viewers sip a cup of blood-stained game. Not meant for those, who are in pursuit of entertainment, but certainly a one-time watch for getting the real feel of some inglorious past pages in the account of India.