Coffee @ Madras Cafe..a Viewer’s review

This cafe brewed me a perfect cup of coffee. Wow! What a film, so engrossing & that too a political thriller.. Madras Cafe does not qualify as a typical Bollywood masala movie. Well, you can expect a complete omission of romance & songs barring one or two romantic scenes and a background song towards the end of the flick.

The film is based on the backdrop of the early 1990s when Indian & Sri Lankan troops were trying to get control over the Tamil rebellions and the scenario when one of the major political leaders of India was assassinated by using a human bomb. Most of us are aware of this tragic terrorist event that happened back then.

#Madrascafe tries to cover all major events that led to the dreadful bomb blast. It deals adeptly with the circumstances of the people behind it & their varied reasons. I wouldn’t give credit entirely to Shoojit Sircar, the director of the film (also the director of Vicky Donor). Still, I would give the credit to the entire team- the writer, the cinematographer & the actors. Especially John Abraham & Sidharth Basu have exceptionally justified their characters. Nargis Fakhri also looks good as a foreign journalist. I cannot comment on the similarity or dissimilarity between the actual events & those depicted in the film but as a commoner, I would say that there is no smoke without fire.

What worked for me:

The scene of the assassination being executed is very close to a real event and I was equally taken aback seeing it in the movie as I was when it happened for real. The story worked for me 110 per cent, a major commitment to his duty, to someone else’s revolution turning into a rebel. Though the movie could look like a historical documentary or a war movie with a lot of onscreen bloodshed but for the clever handling of the story it doesn’t. If you like Kahani movie for its superb plot then I would suggest Madras Cafe is a must-watch for you!!

The story..

Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham) is asked to go for an undercover RAW operation in Jaffna, Sri Lanka where the Indian government has already started their peace operations in the best interest of Tamil rebels. Reporting to Robin Dutta (Sidharth Basu) based in Delhi, John becomes a part of the team there which is headed by Bala. Many events led the Indian government’s peace operation towards failure as an outcome of which the  Indian forces & the Tamil rebels here named LTF in a state of war. Meanwhile, John meets a foreign journalist (Nargis Fakhri), who has come to interview LTF’s leader.  Her and some events make John conclude that a mole is present on the Indian front. Further, the story moves on to conspiracies done to strengthen the LTF leader & it is here that the final conspiracy of assassination is done by him. The climax of the movie fiercely advances further on to the final race between the Indian front & LTF;  coding-decoding of the conspiracy & the conspires by John to crack the actual plot of assassination and the execution of the assassination plan by LTF.