MADRAS CAFÉ SERVES A BITTER COFFEE
Where in the world have all those jolly and laconic film critics gone? I had immense expectations, when I read all the reviews about Madras Cafe – rare treat, crisp editing, wonderful acting by John Abraham, Bollywood’s answer to “Tears of the sun” and “Blood Diamond”. These were rather hollow - as I was to find out later - comments by numerous critics of the leading news houses throughout the country. Madras cafe thrives to be in the genre of various Hollywood blockbusters, but sadly fails in getting there. The movie depicts the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils, rise of the Tamil Elam; the lives of innocent civilians caught up in the cross fire, and all along you have the underlying plot of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The movie heavily borrows from “Tears of Sun” and “Blood Diamond” and to add the feminine factor, a so called journalist and an actress who speaks back in English like an old gramophone record is thrown in, rather as an afterthought, in the cast. The movie in...