Movie Review: Madras Cafe

For a country fixated on its Western front, here's a movie that focuses attention on our tiny Southern neighbour and the decades of ethnic conflict and civil war that claimed lakhs of innocent civilian lives, and dealt a humiliating blow to the mighty Indian Army.

Madras Cafe is about a RAW officer, Major Vikram Singh (John Abraham), deputed to Jaffna with a mission to neutralize Anna, the dreaded and defiant LTF leader who refuses to surrender arms and return to negotiations, to help bring in peaceful provincial elections, a personal mission of the Indian PM. With the help of a foreign war journalist (Nargis Fakhri), Vikram reaches out to the LTF second in command, with an aim to splinter Anna's army and render him toothless. As one operation after another goes horribly wrong, and finally claims the resignation of the PM, it soon becomes clear that there is a mole in RAW and Delhi's corridors of power, and the deadly game of geopolitics finally hurtles towards the grisly end - the human bomb assassination of the ex PM at a massive pre-election rally.

MC is a promising film, a commendable effort, and worth watching on the big screen, for a number of reasons. It is fast paced, the locales and the cinematography is great, the detailing is awesome, the action realistic, and for most part, it is pretty engrossing. Shots of giant choppers floating over misty jungles, the roars of the rotors vibrating through the Dolby speakers from one side of the theatre to the other, are wonderful. John Abraham puts in a decent performance, and is very comfortable when he dons the fatigues. Rashi Khanna is wonderfully cast as the loving, caring and very lonely wife of the officer - and impresses in her tiny role. Nargis is hot, her pouting lips and svelte figure lights up the screen, whenever she does manage to get onto it. The Tigers are also beautifully cast, and Siddharth Basu makes a great debut on the big screen, after all those amazing years running quiz shows.

The use of alternate names and references, steals from the drama and distracts attention. Rajiv Gandhi is referred to as the PM, and at times as the ex PM, but never by name. The actor playing Gandhi has the overall look right, but one wonders whether all the noise in the media about his "uncanny" resemblance was just a plant, because it is not so uncanny after all! The LTTE becomes LTF, although the cadres are still referred to as Tigers. Prabhakaran becomes Anna.

But what really robs from the experience is the predetermined end. Knowing that Vikram will fail in the end, knowing that the assassination will happen anyway, is like reading the last page of the big fat suspense novel. It's one thing watching the Marines go after Osama, knowing they will get him in ZDT; it's far less thrilling watching an Indian RAW agent on a hopeless endeavour.

Overall, a good movie, but not a feel good one. Good for the critics, lovers of good cinema, and the "elite" who like frowning on "commercial cinema" - but if you want to have a happy weekend, get on the train, baby :)

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist that one!