Its very seldom that we can boast a Bollywood thriller to be taut. In majority of the cases, the films fail to carry on the tension till the climax, and looses its steam by the last act. But MADRAS CAFE manages to achieve just that. In fact, the film's second half increases the intensity and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. This film is an excellent effort by the director Shoojit Sircar who has done extensive research on the subject of the film.
An Indian military officer Vikram Singh, played by co-producer John Abraham, is assigned by RAW chief, Robin Dutt (Siddharth Basu) to conduct covert operations in Sri Lankan city Jaffna. Once in war zone, Vikram reports to his superior Bala (Prakash Belawadi) and bumps into London-based war correspondent Jaya (Nargis Fakhri) before channeling his energy to track down the activities of LTA boss Anna Bhaskaran (Ajay Ratnam) and lure his political ally Shri (Kannan Arunachalam) to go against the former.What follows is Vikram’s close encounter with gun-toting extremists who view themselves as revolutionaries and determining the dangerous conspiracy to kill an important Indian leader with a human bomb.
Based on the assassination plot on ex Prime Minister Mr.Rajiv Gandhi, the story is narrated in flashback by Vikram.He explains the whole political situation and the different power dynamics in Sri Lanka at that point of time and prepares the audience with the background of this outrageous plot. This consumes the first half of the film and then the thriller aspect in this political thriller takes precedence. Its a race against time for Vikram and his team to track down codes and get to the middle of the conspiracy and everything is captured at breakneck pace.We all know the ending, but we still root for Vikram.
The editing is crisp and the cinematography excellent -I cant remember the last time I saw a better shot movie in Bollywood- and the screenplay holds everything together.While the only expression of John Abraham was that of intensity, its good for the movie to cover up for his lack of acting depth. He delivers excellently in his role as the protagonist. In fact of his lack of acting skills, the thing I like about John is his decision to do a variety of roles (NO SMOKING,WATER, TAXI NUMBER 9211) , and Madras Cafe would add another feather in his cap. My main concern before watching the movie was the casting of Nargis Fakhri. She was the only weak spot in the excellent Imtiaz Ali venture ROCKSTAR , and I was afraid it would be the same case here. But she held her own in her role as the London based journalist and was helped by the choice of not speaking in Hindi. The rest of the supporting cast was great which included many new faces and a special mention must be made of Siddharth Basu who gives an excellent performance.
All said and done, it is no BLACK FRIDAY, but still an unbiased and honest look at a very horrific and violent incident in the pages of history which is told extremely well by the entire crew. This is the type of movies Bollywood need and I hope these films get the audience they deserve. With the news of CHENNAI EXPRESS breaking the record of 3 IDIOTS, it hurts me to see the theater only half full on a Saturday evening for MADRAS CAFE.
MY VERDICT
***1/2 - Go Watch It
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