1 Line Review: A ‘no song’ and engaging movie.
The best part about this movie was that it has no songs, yippie! When the story line is good, actors have been asked to do their precise part and go home, this formula is bound to work. Two weeks back it was Chennai Express and now Madras Cafe, Bolloywood has put Tamil Nadu in the front seat for sure this month.
Directed by Shoojit Sircar, same guy who gave us Vicky Donor and Yahaan, has done a decent job here as well. The movie is set in the 1990’s during the Sri Lankan Civil war and the related assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. John Abraham (Army) is in the lead role, supported by Nargis Fakhri (as a foreign journalist) and a new comer Rashi Khanna (as his wife). All the other actors with shorter roles also have played their part well. You will not see anyone over acting. On that fact you will even appreciate Nargis for doing her job and disappearing when not needed, guess she can’t get rid of her pouting face but we can live with that now. Also, since she was a foreign journalist she never spoke a word in Hindi, thank god for that, we were spared of much horror.
John Abraham has never been the best of the actors but he is not bad either. In Madras Cafe he will surely be liked for his performace. Guess when he is not given a romantic or funny role, his skill comes out better. The jokes doing the rounds is that he is a better producer than an actor, since he does not have to appear on the screen! I don’t entirely buy that.
The movie speaks volume about the Indian political motivation, inspiration and involvement with the two leading parties in the Sri Lankan Civil War, how authorities from the Indian government were deeply connected to all the developments there and lastly how the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was planned and smoothly executed with the first time ever ‘human bomb’.
Its named ‘Madras Cafe’ since the plot to kill Rajiv Gandhi was conceived here. Movie has been shot at multiple locations like London, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand. But most of the scenes which is shown as Sri Lanka is actually shot in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Another interesting fact is that the shooting scenes have been shot in Thailand using real AK47 and other machine guns, for which permission was never given in India.
With a run time of 2 hours 10 minutes, a gripping story, no songs and no over acting I suggest you go to Madras and not Chennai! 🙂
Interesting writing Adi, good review 🙂
thank you dude! 🙂