Cinema Connoisseur's Cave

Narrative that follows the 'whodunnit' approach often relies on the climactic twist. Herein lies the craftsmanship of the filmmaker to keep you on the edge even if there is nothing but a simple conversation is going on the screen. You can feel the Hitchcockian bomb is there somewhere. David Fincher showed us how to hold the suspense throughout the film in his early works. Dennis Villeneuve here pretty much did a similarly splendid job.   Two families see their worlds go upside down, when their two very young daughters go missing, presumably abducted. When the adept detective has to let the primary suspect go, due to lac k of evidences, the father of one child takes it to himself to find the daughters. Sounds familiar? Yes, the premise is quite similar to that of a Mystic River or a Zodiac. But, the defining feature of this film would be that, every now and then it justifies its title and asks you question about who the real prisoner is. For it is us who put oursel

Often come films that are terrible yet has its cast performing extra-ordinarily. The rare ones are where the film is superbly directed with a fine story, but let down by the cast. Madras Café is an example of the latter ones. This espionage thriller is set in Sri Lanka during the 80s and 90s, while the country was torn in Civil War. The ethnic clash claimed number of innocent lives. The-Assassination-of-Rajiv-Gandhi-inspired incident served as the central point, around which the story is spun. When the conflict reached its zenith though rebel group of Tamil ethnicity, LTF (based on LTTE), India decided to intervene and send a peace force. This is where, our protagonist, Vikram Singh was sent to the war zone to ensure the operation of Peace Force does not fall through. Based on this promising premise, the story moves in considerably apt pace, weaving more threads, that culminated the cloth of the grand conspiracy.  The screenplay deviated from the traditional three-act s