Cafe spy thriller that entices with dollops of intrigue

Chocolate eclairs, vegetable puffs with dollops of intrigue — that’s what Cafe Berlin’s menu offers. The cafe may have nothing in common with the German capital when it comes to culinary delights (Berliners love their Currywurst, not veg puff), but writer-director Atul Sabharwal is not way off the mark while naming his espionage thriller ‘Berlin’. Like the Berlin of the early 1990s, which was referred to as the ‘spy capital of the world’, this cafe too is a meeting point for intelligence agents from various countries.

Set in 1993, soon after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, Berlin recreates the cold atmospherics of the global stage to bring a slice of action to the national capital. The Russian President (it does not name him, but Boris Yeltsin would be a good guess) is set to visit India, to strike a deal on cryogenic techniques. The US is unhappy. There is a buzz about an assassination attempt, and the temperature at Cafe Berlin goes soaring.

Amid all the hustle-bustle, the speech and hearing-impaired Ashok (Ishwak Singh), who is a waiter at Cafe Berlin, is arrested for murder. Sign language teacher Pushkin Verma (Aparshakti Khurana) is hired by The Bureau’s official Jagdish (Rahul Bose) to interrogate Ashok. Jagdish not only has to deal with the pressure from his boss (Kabir Bedi), but also has to tackle the hostilities from his rival organisation, The Wing, headed by Raman (Deepak Qazir Kejriwal).

But the conspiracy theory dwells just on the surface. As the interrogation begins, the complexity of the situation begins to unravel, sometimes through the direct confrontation between Pushkin and Ashok, and sometimes through flashback. With his sharp eyes and a sharper mind, Ashok proves himself to be smarter than the trained agents. Is Ashok the key to the plot to assassinate the Russian President? Or is he the fall guy? Or simply a megalomaniac who believes “kuch bada karega toh karnama banega”.

‘Berlin’ is more about personal ambitions in the world of espionage than a full-blown assassination plot. This “slow burn, silence-filled, shadowy exploration of people”, to borrow Rahul Bose’s words from his recent interview, plays out on dark, empty streets and darker rooms. Sabharwal stays clear of the hyper-nationalism, chest-thumping kind of drama. There are no sleek action scenes. As Pushkin and Ashok communicate under the glare of Jagdish and his team through sign language, at no point do we feel excluded from the conversation. In fact, as their bond grows deeper with each hand gesture, we are more and more drawn to them. Both Khurana and Singh are excellent as two ordinary people with traits of heroism and sacrifice within.

Bose exudes tremendous screen presence, with his vileness and all. The character arc of Anupriya Goenka as a mysterious unnamed woman is as thin as the assassination plot, but she adds to the intrigue factor.

Cinematographer Shreedutta Namjoshi restrains himself to a limited colour palette, which is mostly of browns and greys, thus providing the perfect backdrop for the characters that change their colours.

Sabharwal’s attention to detail is amazing. Using props like Contessa and Fiat cars, Atlas cycle hoarding, cassette-recorder, dial phones… he takes us back to the early ’90s. For him, ‘Berlin’ is a ‘love letter to a time gone by’ and in his hands, it becomes an invitation to visit the cafe and savour eclairs, vegetable puffs, and dollops of intrigue.