A solid political thriller that grows with time
As this film was by Shoojit Sircar, it immediately caught my attention but turned out to be different from his usual feel good humane movies. The film took its own sweet time to settle, very much like intense Hollywood thrillers in the line of ‘Syriana’ but could not carry on the impact like that. The intensity and seriousness ‘Syriana’ brings in is something phenomenal, which ‘Madras Café’ could not achieve, even though it tries extremely hard to. However, what looks mundane initially, gradually grows on to become a decent thriller, even if not completely satisfying.
Madras Café stars with John Abraham in beard, where he looks hopeless. But, thankfully, his bearded avatar lasts only for few minutes. Then he gets called up to go to Sri Lanka. Due to various geo political stands, the situation in Sri Lanka gets grim. Vikram Singh (John Abraham) meets war correspondent Jaya Sahni (Nargis Fakhri) first up and finds a way to go to meet the rebels. His senior, Bala (Prakash Belawadi) and he develop a friction right away. But, given the nature of film, it isn’t greatly highlighted. Coming from Shoojit Sircar, it is really something, that he chose to make a film without emotions, in docu drama style. But, unfortunately it is not as classy as one would except or not as stylish something like the latter part of ‘Talvar’ which was unique on its own.
No matter what, Prakash Belwadi always performs his role to perfection. Such a fine actor. John Abraham even though occupies a lot of screen space, does not get a chance to emote. Even when his wife gets killed or he gets tortured, it’s nothing major. It feels just like one of the headlines in first page in some corner, which you usually miss. May be that is the intention of Shoojit Sircar. He did not want to really bring the emotions out of individuals. He wanted it to be a film firm on politics.
As hot she was, Nargis Fakhri’s role was irritating. The other officials looked proper in whatever scenes they acted. Nice casting I must say. One good thing about the film is that the film doesn’t take sides and it’s fairly neutral. Even if you see the story inclined to some part, it looks organic and doesn’t look like something which forces audience to see only one part of the story. In addition, the politics plays an important part, much more than human lives and their emotions.
Generally, Shoojit Sircar is a man with clear vision. Because it’s not easy to make a film like ‘October’. Even a ‘Piku’ or ‘Vicky Donor’ is doable but ‘October’ is not at all an easy film to envision. So, when he said that he wanted to show the raw face of RAW men, I was taken aback. I thought the intention of this film was to be politics, not necessarily ugly politics but politics. Because that’s how the film looked, devoid of any emotions. ‘Kuruthipunal’ fits the definition of what Shoojit Sircar says. Madras Café as a standalone film does a decent job in being a tense, getting on your nerves type of thriller but if it has to be considered a humane film, it so is not.
constantscribbles 