When i saw the trailer of Madras Cafe for the first time, I knew this will be a good movie and gladly i am not disappointed. Madras Cafe from the name might sound like a comedy at the first but once you see the poster or the trailer you are in for a surprise, its nothing remotely close to comedy unlike the director’s previous attempt of Vicky Donor.
Madras cafe is a story narrated by Vikram Singh (John Abraham) the protagonist of the film who believes that he and his team could have averted the assassination of our Ex-PM (read Rajiv Gandhi). The movie starts from mid 80’sin a quick recap of the civil war in Sri Lanka and how will it take the toll on our country in the future. Step by step we get to see the moves made in the cabinet in Delhi to avert the Tamilian crisis at the cost of lives of thousands of civilians & soldiers. A story about , a team of RAW agents who work their blood and sweat everyday to keep our country safe, but fail due to the leak within their team. Madras Cafe is all about What Happens, What Should Have Happened & And What Could Not Happen !
Off late we get a feeling that John Abraham has started taking his career more seriously, with roles like Manya Surve (An Infamous Local Gangster) & Vikram Singh (A Military RAW Agent) has a good performance, unlike over the board RAW agents like Ek Tha Tiger, or Agent Vinod, this is a more subtle and a much believable character, i wont call it an amazing performance but its definitely worth a praise. The body language and physicality of John are apt for a RAW agent, dialogue delivery is mediocre and his expressions are nothing great. In a nutshell John Abraham has give a good performance, but it is better than all his previous endeavours.
Nargis Fakhri plays Jaya (a British war correspondent in Sri Lanka) As for Nargis, her voice hasn’t been dubbed like they did in Rockstar since Nargis Fakhri is playing foreign war correspondent it looks much better as a girl who looks Indian journalist but has an accent. She gets a rather small role but is an important character which gives the movie required turns. Nargis gets whatever she could from the role.
Rashi Khanna is a new face and is extremely fresh and likeable, we haven’t seen here before or even if we have we have a feeling that we haven’t, she looks simple and beautiful. But with this movie she is at a wrong place at a right time. The audience today does not need a lead actress with a meaty role, even a small but potentially important role could do the trick for a great future in the industry, just like it did for Preity Zinta in Dil Se. Ruby (Rashi Khanna) is a very lovable and soulful character.
Siddarth Basu, the Quiz Master successfully pulls off a RAW Director (Robin Dutt aka R.D), although he lacks a little more aggression and wit that a RAW director should have, he still manages to play a good character. who would have ever imagined for a person who made us wear our thinking cap with shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati & Dus Ka Dum could play a RAW Director.
Prakash Belawadi as Bala is the most amazing character of the movie. without doing anything and looking just like a normal person you just tend to know that there is something wrong with this person, and of course the accent, physicality and the personality of a salable RAW agent has been just blended in perfectly.
The cinematography and the picturisation is very good, it gives us a feel as if we are watching some Hollywood movie. the fight scenes are very nicely handled and so are the scenes of the past Sri Lanka. The team must have a done a lot of research before making the movie but they fail to answer few simple question which i will not disclose or they will be “SPOILERS”. Than GOD there are no songs and i give full marks to the sensibility for not pushing in songs to the Producer & Director.
On the whole Madras Cafe is a movie for the multiplex audience and for people who like to see Hollywood movies on war and conspiracy. John Abraham neither removes his shirt not flexes is muscles and does not even engage in hand to hand fight so that rules out the possibility of the whistles and front row movie lovers to storm to the cinema. The movie has a good story and a good screenplay, the characters are good but has a very slow pace. The dialogues sometimes in Hindi, Tamil and English could confuse the audience. So if you consider yourself as an intelligent movie watcher and want to see a movie with much sensibilities then go and see Madras Cafe.
My Rating 3.5 / 5 (-1 for too much of a beginning and too less of climax, -1/2 for not upto the mark performances)
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