Coffee @ Madras Cafe..a Viewer’s review

This cafe brewed me a perfect cuppa 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 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 about 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 people behind it & their varied reasons. I wouldn’t give credit entirely to Shoojit Sircar, the director of film (also director of Vicky Donor) but 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 &  that depicted in the film but as a commoner I would just say that there is no smoke without fire.

What worked for me:

The scene of assassination being executed is very close to 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 percent, a majors commitment to his duty, to someone elses’s revolution turning into rebel. Though the movie could look like a historical documentary or a war movie with lot of onscreen blood shed but for the clever handling of the story it doesn’t. If you had liked Kahani for its superb plot then I suggest Madras Cafe is a must watch for you!!

The story..

Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham) is asked to go for a under cover RAW operation in Jaffna, Sri Lanka where the Indian government has already started of 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 lead 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 take interview of LTF’s leader.  From her and some events make John conclude of a mole being present in 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 movie fiercely advances further on to the final race between 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.