'Madras Cafe'

Rating: ****)

By Subhash K. Jha 

Film: "Madras Cafe"; Cast: John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri and Raashi Khanna; Director: Shoojit Sircar; Rating: ****



If only history could be changed by art. Cinema is a powerful medium for socio-political expression and revolution. Alas, in this country, entertainment engages all other aspects of life on celluloid.


But seriously, it's time now to get off the "Chennai Express" and get into "Madras Cafe" for a cup of the compelling. We need a reality check. And we need to regain a sense of history in Bollywood cinema which seems lost in the hoary art of streetside tamasha, glorified and aggrandized by processes of cinematics that are perceived to be the elixir of pop culture.


It is time for mainstream entertainment to grow up. Heightened realism is a means to achieve a synthesis of fantasy and history in this deftly scripted semi-fictional account of the processes leading to Rajiv Gandhi's tragic assassination in 1991.


The trenchant script, co-written by Somnath Dey and Shubendu Bhattacharya, attempts and succeeds in building the same spiral of pseudo-history that Oliver Stone built in "JFK". I feel Indian politics, because of the country's multi-culturism, is far more complex than its American or European counterpart. Our cinema tends to dilute, simplify and trivialise history because we are much too wary of and lazy about getting involved.


Not Shoojit Sircar. Not "Madras Cafe". Not John Abraham. What a courageous producer and actor John has proven himself to be! More of that later.


But first the plot.


Let me say right away, that to understand the enormity of the story told in "Madras Cafe", the audience ought to be familiar with the violent history of the Sri Lankan civil war. But even if you don't know that thousands of Tamilians died in the war of separatism, it is no sweat off the screenplay's back.

Tucked away in the compelling creases of the plot is a terrific thriller about the assassination of a prime minister, who, let it be known, is not named in the film. Nor are the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), Prabakaran and the other key players. But then this is India. Here, secrecy and stealth are the founding fathers of any political expose.


But you can't escape the clutches of history's tyranny. Sircar's skillful interweavement of fact and fiction leaves little room for scepticism. We know as we watch with helpless astonishment, that the 'Prime Minister' will die, that the hero in this case won't be able to save him.


Such are the heroes in real life. Unsung, sizes smaller than life. John Abraham skips into the part of the RAW agent Vikram Singh with an ease and comfort of a natural-born secret agent. If James Bond or for that matter Kabir Khan's Tiger were to have any truck with real-life politics, they would have been as believably brave and as credibly heroic as John in this film.


Every actor seems to take a cue from the vast resources of authenticity at their disposal. Specially riveting is Prakash Belawade as John's associate, who seems to drink hard to escape from the enormity of his compromise. Even Nargis Fakhri, so self-consciously affected as Ranbir Kapoor's doomed soul-mate in "Rockstar", nails her war correspondent's part with her radiant presence. But I have a quibble with her character Jaya. Why does Jaya speak in English while Vikram answers in Hindi?


The linguistic puzzle never quite obstructs the devastating drama of war violence conspiracy and betrayal. These are dramatic points of political reckoning. And yet Sircar keeps the proceedings subdued and low-key. It's a miracle how Sircar's narrative voice never gets shrill even when the occasion is so ripe for over-statement.


Plenty of the credit for the tonal correctness of the narrative must go to Kamaljeet Negi's brilliantly unadorned cinematography, which locks in on stunning visuals of violence and espionage-related action without falling into the mistake of making the frames look prettier than the grim situation that they are meant to capture.


Sircar's editor Chandrashekhar Prajapati imbues a documentary style mood to the footage. But the sense of cinematic expansiveness is retained in the way the camera moves through the characters' restless lives, searching for positions of comfort in a situation laden with desperate anxiety.


There's a whole lot of stifled drama in "Madras Cafe". When a key character dies in the second-half, the tragedy is handled without fuss. John's tight-lipped performance gives the film a sense of tragic grandeur. We constantly feel we are in a territory where drama has no place. The soundtrack is exceptionally honest. Shantanu Moitra's background music underscores every scene without hammering in the emotions.


"Madras Cafe" is a dark deep and satisfying film about the politics of separatism. The film doesn't take sides. If it is against anything, it is the culture of violence that nations often feed into neighbouring countries for their own gains. This film opens up the hitherto unexplored genre of political drama in Bollywood.


After "Vicky Donor", we know Sircar is comfortable exploring innovative cinematic territory. Here, he tells an edgy disturbing provocative but rational and fair-minded story that takes mainstream Bolywood cinema kicking and screaming into a new horizon.


This is cinema signifying a coming-of-age with unforgettable visuals and drama and a rousing mature career-defining performance by its leading man.


Get off the train, baby. This is arguably the best political thriller that Bollywood has so far given us.

Chennai Express

Film: "Chennai Express", Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Director: Rohit Shetty, Rating: ***

Dammit! No out-takes!! Is this really a Rohit Shetty film? Every film of the "Gol Maal" director has so far ended with out-takes giving us entertaining glimpses from during the making of the film. Here those trademark Shetty out-takes are replaced by a Honey Singh track which celebrates Rajnikanth and the lungi.

The rest of the film resembles those typical sambar-and-sandalwood creations by K. Raghvendra Rao, and worse still, Raj Kanwar's "Dhai Akshar Prem Ke" where Aishwarya to escape her parental wrath at her elopement, introduces to her family a man she has just met as her soul-mate.

Of course, there are the flying cars exploding in the air to make sure we know that all said and drummed, this is a Rohit Shetty presentation.

Packaged with pickled precision, peppered with just the right doses of naughty jokes and precocious pranks that go well with Shah Rukh's 40-year-old brat's act, "Chennai Express" is the kind of non-toxic comic entertainer where the most damaging double-entendres you'd get is a Tamil word that sounds like Angelina Jolie's name.

Come again?

That brings me to another major hurdle in the heap of hilarity that Shetty builds so meticulously in the first-half.

The generous outflow of Tamil that seems initially engaging (more so, since Shah Rukh shares our non-comprehension of the rapidfire Tamilian cloudburst that accompanies Deepika's quicksilver character) begins to come in the way as the narration grows older and runs out of energy.

But then there is the sprightly Deepika as the runaway Tamilian girl who piles on to the North Indian mithaiwala stranger to escape marrying the boorish fiancee back home in her village in Tamil Nadu.

We've seen Kareena Kapoor do the chirpy runaway train traveller in "Jab We Met". Deepika brings a special filtered-coffee flavour to her chirpy character. Even that broad hammy accent grows on us.

Yes, we like! Here she is is the only Rohit Shetty team member (and I use the term 'team' since Shetty generously credits the direction to himself and his team) who seems to have a firm grip over her rudderless dithering character.

Deepika plays Meena Amma with flavourful flourish. She is specially delightful in three key sequences, two of them comic and the other unexpectedly sombre.

In the sequence where her character turns into a sleeping, kicking and convulsive zombie, she's unbelievably goofy. It's not just Shah Rukh who gets a kick out of that scene.

Would Rohit Shetty please do a full-fledged out-and-out comedy with Deepika? That, "Chennai Express" is not. It is a half-hearted but laugh-hearted effort that makes the fatal error of taking itself too seriously.

Towards the end when the utterly shammed climactic fight ensues, we even have a long speech by Shah Rukh on the social status of the girl child.

Not now, please!

As we squirm at the attempt to turn comedy into a serious business we look back at the rest of the film with some amount of warmth and affection.

Some of the long shots of the train winding through green acres is breathtaking. And Shah Rukh's first meeting with Deepika's father over a bridge over a fast-flowing river is shot with amazing brio.

There's a wonderfully-shot sequence where Shah Rukh has to carry Deepika to a temple over hundreds of steps. Deepika here goes from amusement and mockery to a sense of belonging and pride in her man's arms. It's a moment built with care and love.

But then, such tender affection really has no place in this comedy of cultural dispossession where the Punjabi boy Rahul gets embroiled in Tamil girl Meena's family affairs and comes out... well not quite wiser. But filled with self-mocking laughter.

Shah Rukh pokes a whole lot of good-natured fun at his now-aging lover-boy persona. There are tongue-in-cheek references to "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge" and several other Shah Rukh Khan films and songs including the introductory South Indian lines from the "Jiya jale" song in "Dil Se".

All these self-tributes work better than what Puri Jagganath did with the Bachchan persona "Buddha... Hoga Tera Baap".

Rohit Shetty is more in command of his canvas here than in his last comedy "Bol Bachchan". But the self-deprecatory laughter is still not good enough. Somewhere you feel the one-line plot (okay, if not one then two-line plot) is stretched into an unwelcome second-half where nothing really happens. Even the humour tracks stops short beyond a point.

But there is some genuine steam and spark in the early part of "Chennai Express".

Towards the beginning of the train journey when Deepika and Shah Rukh play a kind of antakshari of Hindi film songs to put the goons off her trail, Deepika completely overshadows her kingly co-star, who should be okay with being upstaged by his female co-star.

After all he has given Deepika priority over his own name in the credit titles. And Deepika takes the lead very seriously. She has never looked better and never been funnier on screen without even trying too hard.

But then the plot and the situations let her down. The antakshari-speak that was amusing in the beginning recurs during a stale fight sequence in the second-half.

We are no longer laughing. Not when Shah Rukh's purported big chase sequences end in embarrassing deadends. Not when an item song with incoherent words and even more misguided logistics pops up like a joke whose punchline has gone missing.

Through all of this, Shah Rukh Khan braves it with a delicious sense of self-mockery bordering almost on a masochistic absence of heroic pride.

Yes, he likes it when the joke is on him. But that happens once too often here.

So it's finally here. The film that all Shah Rukh Khan fans (which covers half the hemisphere) has been waiting for. The good news first. "Chennai Express" is a pleasant and likable film in parts. The bad news is, it does nothing for Shah Rukh Khan's imdomitable star power except to tell us he can still play a 40-year Rahul without faltering.

That we already know.

Naughty Jatts

Naughty Jatts, another addition to the rom-com Punjabi movies with the heavy star cast infact the hit cast in the recent times. Arya Babbar earned lot of appreciation from his previous movie Jatts in Golmaal, Roshan Prince’s Fer Mamla Gadbad Gadbad did well on the box office, the Punjabi Juliet, Neeru Bajwa is still enjoying the success of Jatt & Juliet 2 and Binnu Dhillon is the rockstar of Punjabi movies these days. So each and every member of Naughty Jatt’s cast is promising to bring another hit movie on the screen.

Director Pankaj Batra is making his come back in Punjabi movies after Virsa, released in 2010. Naughty Jatts is completely different in genre as compare to Virsa.

The story begins with the one sided love story of two boys for a single girl. Rocky (Arya Babbar) is the neighbour of Simmy (Neeru Bajwa) and has been trying to impress Simmy for quite some time. On the other hand Laali (Binnu Dhillon) is a close friend of Simmy and he also wants to get married with her. But unaware of all the other things, Simmy wants to become a singer and also wants to marry a singer. Rocky’s cousin Balwinder (Roshan Prince) comes to the city for music classes and for a land case and he stays with Rocky at his flat. Rocky acquires his help to impress Simmy and Laali keeps on trying to push him back. All this develops an interesting plot.

Taking on from the plot to the screenplay, direction and individual performances by the principal cast, all these things are in favour of Naughty Jatts. It’s a fun ride all the way through and moves on a very good pace without slipping even for a minute or two especially in the first half. A complimentary job by the whole star cast and the crew.

There are very few weak points in the movie except one or two tiny ones. The climax could have been little more interesting and vast than it is. Few more reasons could have been generated for a better love story ending.

About Characters –

Arya Babbar is now getting use to the Punjabi cinema and looks impressive as a part of the lead cast. He has been on top of his performance in Naughty Jatts. Roshan Prince is improving more and more with every movie. He has looked cute in a more of a silent role but yet very imposing too. As usual, Neeru Bajwa has been terrific with her acting as well as with her looks in the movie. Binnu Dhillon is the standout performer once again. He is just too good once again and this time in more of a lead role. BN Sharma is another actor who has a big role in uplifting the movie. Karamjit Anmol deserves a huge appreciation with his character in Naughty Jatts. The way he has complimented Binnu Dhillon and other cast, is sympathetic.


The story may not have anything new to offer but the way it has been presented and at the pace it moves, is really marvellous. Screenplay and Dialogs are very enjoyable and delightful.


Music of Naughty Jatts is moderate and is a bit above average. Surkh Gulabi, Katrina and Dil Nai Lagna are the picks. Background music also very restrained and goes well with all the scenes.


Director Pankaj Batra earlier directed Arya Babbar and Gulshan Grover starrer Virsa in 2010 and he earned a decent amount of fame with that movie. He has been involved in some big bollywood movies as an assistant director in the past. His work in Naughty Jatts is simply remarkable. The way he has carried a light hearted story, is really appreciating.


All in all Naughty Jatts is humours, amusing and a twisted comic love story. Climax may not be as exciting as rest of the movie but still having the humour in loads. Watch it and it could prove to be a stress reliever for complete 2 hours.


Rating : 3.5/5.