Movie Review: Coffee House

Banner: Shivkala Motion Pictures, Marwah Studios
Produced by: Mahim Mittal, Kirshan Kumar, Asit Mittal and Sandeep Gupta
Directed and written by: Gurbir Singh Grewal
Star Cast : Ashutosh Rana, Saakshi Tanwar, Paintal, Vrajesh Heerji, Hemant Pandey, Harsh Chhaya, Vinod Nagpal, Javed Khan, S.M. Zaheer, Neha Mishra and Aman Dhaliwal
Lyrics by: Mahim Mittal
Music Composer: Jaidev Kumar
Cinematography: Sebastian AKN
Choreography: Longines Fernandez
Dialogue recording by: Avneet Grewal

“Coffee House” is the film on society, elections and politics. The movie has Ashutosh Rana and Sakshi Tanwar in lead roles and the movie shows a man trying to speak against objectionable political practices. The film is based on the real life incident of the death of Safdar Hashmi, who was a social activist and the movie appears to be a low budget venture, more like a TV show, than a commercial movie.

The film shows Ashutosh Rana and Sakshi Tanwa, playing a couple living in the neighborhood of a coffee house. Rana runs street theatre group aimed to create dramas to inspire people and change society practices. Rana’s wife runs a newspaper and Rana writes for the paper but when his editorial start clashing with monetary interests of his wife, he withdraws from writing.

The movie shows the famous Coffee culture of Kolkatta where some people from different cultural and religious backgrounds meet under a roof and discuss about the prevalent political and social conditions. The group regularly visits the coffee shop and it includes a girl from theater group of Rana who leaves her live- in boyfriend for a man who can fulfill her dream to get richer and to become a TV journalist.

A group of senior men and woman share their experience of being neglected by their kids and the movie also shows how in bureaucracy rules are changed for personal benefits. The people coming to the coffee shop belong to different societies but they get together and get politically aware. They try to fight against wrong practices prevalent in society and it is disliked by local politicians who plot to break the unity of the group that roots to different society structure.

The movie shows fine chemistry of Rana and Tanwar but they are not shown together for long onscreen. Harsh Chaaya play a rich cunning man efficiently. You should not search for glamorous songs dance numbers and choreography in this movie. This is a kind of long television show with a social message. You just don’t have the Bollywood kind of masala and cinematography. Even the script is not very strong.

The film will get audience from the group who are die hard fans of lead pair.

Rating: 3/10