MADRAS CAFÉ: Flawed but undoubtedly the finest political thriller Bollywood has come up with [3.5/5]

Imagine a war thriller where you already can sense what is going to happen but still it manages to make you question your understandings that either it might not happen this way or if it must, how the proceedings will fit into place. Shoojit Sircar’s MADRAS CAFÉ is one such intriguingly intense, aptly intelligent, flawed but finest political thriller in recent.

Positioned in the time-zone of mid 80’s & early 90’s, when our neighboring country Sri Lanka was going through its toughest episode of heavily brutal & deeply inhuman civil war, MADRAS CAFÉ digs into the past to expose an untold political conspiracy behind our prime-minister’s assassination. Now the best part is, it is a fictional documentation but wrapped cleverly in a series of historic facts that it looks more promising than any other war-dramas based on real life events. West has been doing it since ages, thanks to their liberal environment of freedom to create but in a country like India where extremist-groups are much more in numbers than the unwanted mushrooms in your backyard in monsoons, coming with such a debatable product needs sheer amount of guts.

In his first ‘YAHAAN’, Shoojit Sircar has impressed most of us with a textured romance in the backdrop of militancy and army rule in Kashmir. Here the backdrop is set in Jaffna- the point of action for LTF headed by Anna [reference to LTTE chief Prabhakaran] and Indian force working for peace. John Abraham plays Vikram- an R&AW agent on a secret mission to knock down the open-ended territory of Anna. Meanwhile, the traces of treason take the organization and the mission for granted and in order to repair it, with the help of a committed British journalist [played by Nargis Fakhri], Vikram intercepts the covert plot to assassin our prime minister [reference to Mr. Rajiv Gandhi].

Film’s strongest point is the ‘real people on real locations’ feel, at least for the most of it. Sircar sets a perfect atmospheric war-scene with chilling visuals captured beautifully by Kamaljeet Negi. Also, be ready to witness the most surprising casting in Bollywood ever. Siddhrath Basu as the R&AW chief is the most impressive. There is not a single moment where you doubt his ability to act. Then, there is the ad-man Piyush Pandey as the effortlessly straightforward cabinet secretary and Dibang- the most consistent news anchor on NDTV in the most delightful cameo I have seen in Bollywood.

Having said that, I won’t deny the fact that MADRAS CAFÉ is far from a flawless effort. Story is impeccably fascinating. Dialogues are as colloquial as it could be. But the narrative and the screenplay have more than one loose end. First part is filled with voice-overs and runs like a bullet train to capture and clear the political picture before setting the premise for the finale ‘pressure cooker situation’ where assassination supposes to end it all. Scenes come with a fade-in/fade-out manner only to give it a disengaged lengthy montage kind of feel. Some of the vital information [the madras café conversation between LTF representative, Indian bureaucrat and foreign beneficiary] is being thrown to you repeatedly without much addition until the very last.

Despite all this, the 2 hour 10 min of MADRAS CAFÉ is worth all your money spent on tickets and popcorn. This is a flawed but undoubtedly the finest political thriller Bollywood has come up with. The war-scenes and the bone-chilling explosion scene of Indian prime-minister’s assassination in the climax alone will leave you contented. [3.5/5]