Heist Movie ‘Special 26’: An Engaging Real-Fake Drama!

By -


You cannot call them criminals or gangsters or thieves though their job is to steal only! They are all educated, suave and very intelligent. They show tremendous zeal, patience, will power and even ‘patriotic’ feelings. Their conviction is that they are only trying to mop up the surplus money or plainly speaking black money from corrupt politicians, unscrupulous traders and opulent businessmen. They are not the Robin Hood type either as they use their booty to maintain themselves rather than helping the poor and needy. Problem is you cannot help but love them and love-adore-enjoy this heist-drama-thriller movie ‘Special 26’ because of them!  The movie written and Directed by Neeraj Pandey released all over on 8th February and is declared a super hit—one of the finest from Bollywood this year. Special 26 is not a suspense flick, but you are sure to be regaled with a huge twist in the very end.

The leader of this pack of thieves…sorry…con artistes is Bollywood action-comedy-masala hero Akshay Kumar and you love him too for his honest, realistic and powerful performance keeping his glamour totally away. You also love his chief associate Anupam Kher who is a normal village householder with an ever increasing pack of children and yet capable of posing as a stern intelligence officer mouthing powerfully convincing dialogues bordering on patriotism. The two other associates—Rajesh Sharma and Kishor Kadam—also belong to normal God-fearing families, but get transformed while on the ‘job’. No problems if you would lovingly like to call them the gang of four.

The gang of con artistes poses as CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation)  or Income Tax officials armed with proper IDs and conduct cleverly planned raids on corrupt politicians and trading houses relieving them of their opulence and even getting documents signed by them. Normally these people do not report the matter to the police or the media because of black money issue. The gang also takes along local police officers in the process of the raids and makes perfect fools of them in the end.

Special 26 opens with a CBI recruitment drive organized in a Mumbai five-star hotel where grave looking Akshay and Kher take the interviews, and then the movie gets into a flashback about earlier raids on a New Delhi politician and a Kolkata trader to bring you close to the plot. From the very opening frame the movie flows logically, convincingly and delightfully at a super pace never tiring you in the unfolding except for the totally unnecessary songs that interrupt the superbly woven script and takings. In fact, Kajal Aggarwal in the female lead too looked unnecessary except for adding some glamour dressing to Akshay. 

Manoj Bajapai
Manoj Bajapai plays the real CBI officer chasing the fake ones. In a bid to establish a very tough officer pitted against the very intelligent conmen the director takes you through a chase scene where Manoj finally traps and captures the fleeing criminal. The chase looks too long and too well crafted as it has no other relevance to the plot.
It is refreshing to see Jimmy Shergill in a somewhat major role of a conned police officer who teams up with Manoj to track the gang. Such a gifted actor utilized so rarely and sparingly in Bollywood. Such a pity!

After the most thought provoking and taut thriller  
A Wednesday (2008) young writer-director Neeraj Pandey delivers again with another finely crafted film—based on real life happenings in 1987 when 26 con-men posing as CBI officers raided a big jeweler joint in prime Mumbai. Neeraj painstakingly created the sets and locations pertaining to the eighties and it was spot on. He has a strong eye for details, characterization and relationships with doses of subtle humor thrown in expertly. And there is no statement or justification on morality in his film which is a huge relief. With the con artistes becoming successful in the end that was kept wide open we can safely expect a sequel and why not.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UK Vs India: The COVID-19 Vaccine Vexation!

By -
Image
In the recent cricket Test Series between England and India the 2-1 result in favour of the visitors still hangs in balance entirely due to the fact that a few non-playing members of Team India were found COVID-19 positive which implies that the fifth and the last Test had to be cancelled only because of India’s fault even though not a single playing member of the team got the infection. Now, the change in travel regulations for Indians visiting United Kingdom could be a fallout of the cricket hanger, meaning that the Indians are feared as more prone to getting or spreading the COVID-19 virus with its variants; that India is the originator of the more infectious Delta variant which is again mutating into the Delta Plus; and perhaps also possibly that the handling of the Second Wave of the pandemic in India had been disastrous. Therefore, basically the Englishmen could be feeling insecure with vulnerable Indians loitering around in their territories after sort of achieving the feat of l
Read more

"Bura Mat Suno...Bura Mat Dekho..."!

By -
Image
Long back Mahatma Gandhi advised us ‘Do not listen to bad, do not see bad and do not speak bad’ ( "Bura Mat Suno..Bura Mat Dekho...Bura Mat Kaho" !). Now in modern hyper competitive times we are helpless about the first two don’ts. And persistent exposure to the first two makes us lose the third too! We cannot help but listen to or watch an endless stream of ‘bad’—all around us from home to the streets, in the newspapers and news channels, in the television serials and in the movies and at every act we have to do like walking praying jogging or driving—everyday and every step of our existence. Such continuous barrage of ‘bad’ is fast making us speak and utter a lot of ‘bad’ too. We are becoming doubtful and suspicious of everything around us and we are learning to blurt it out freely and openly. The main ‘bad’ drive comes from politics. We are hounded constantly by all sorts of stories being hammered into us forcing us to form our opinions or go on changing t
Read more

The Way To Dusty Death—A Thoughtful Story!

By -
Image
It was many years ago, we were not exactly little ones then, we were about high school leaving age: myself and my younger brother. Thanks to our father’s ways we used to be sent to our native village absolutely alone since our primary school age; he used to request the government transport service bus conductor to look after us and to put us in a bus going to our village after arriving at the major preceding bus stations. All the time nothing adverse had happened, and therefore, we were quite used to travel alone or the both of us brothers. It is not at all necessary to identify the state, towns or localities; suffice it’d be that it was somewhere in India a long time back.   We boarded the bus at around eight o’clock in the morning after taking a light breakfast at home, from the then home city we were living in, heading for our native village to spend our summer holidays. Our journey was to take at least 8/9 hours which was to deposit us first in the preceding major station from
Read more

Dr. Aswini Kumar Sarma: A Year After A Devastating Personal Tragedy!

By -
Image
That was sometime in the month of May 2018. I was a bit late to wake up and my brother-in-law had already left. He had to attend a high-level meeting in Guwahati and so had to leave very early in the morning. I got up immediately and looked out of the window that opened upon the front side of their quarters, and was just in time to see my brother-in-law getting into the car and the car moving slowly away. As it turned out that was the last time I saw him. Of course, he called me up several times during that day inquiring about the status of my wait-listed train ticket for which he trying with the railway officials, and finally, in the afternoon he only informed me that the reservation was confirmed. As I was seen off by my sister in the Bongaigaon railway station for my journey back to Kolkata I felt unusually sad, didn’t know the reason why.   I visited my hometown Guwahati in May 2018 as my mother, Urmila Chakravarty who continues to write books even in her early eighties, was se
Read more

The Officer With A Tight Smile!

By -
Image
Ranjan was a lowly officer in the huge private organization specializing in film and video productions. However, despite his low rank he had been making a lot of creative contributions in various stages of productions for which he never received any official recognition as was usual with the bureaucratic hierarchy, only the concerned superior at times praised his efforts. But Ranjan had always been happy that the persons in the power circles who matter knew exactly what he could accomplish in his specializations which were often unlimited. In fact, he had been doing more extra professional work than what he was officially supposed to do or assigned to do. He also enjoyed the bureaucratic behaviour patterns in full display all around, and was convinced that the typical bureaucracy was as palpable in private offices as in government services, the latter being normally blamed for the red-tape mind-set. Therefore, he was hardly surprised when he was called by a superior officer to help in
Read more

OTT Platform Watch: Movie ‘Bell Bottom’ Disappoints, Series ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’ Well Made, And More!

By -
Image
  I have been a movie buff since my childhood days, also so passionate about it that I wanted to be a filmmaker and did indeed try in that direction to some extent, still nurturing that ambition. And I always enjoyed the movies on the big screens including those silver screens of the traditional single-screen cinema halls of yore that fitted ideally the 35mm film format and whenever the occasional 70mm films came the frames used to spill over to the sides. I find this very tragic, of course no match to the horrors and sufferings of people due to the pandemic, that for over 18 months now I’ve been deprived of the normal cinema theatre visits and really missing the action. The OTT (Over the Top) streaming platforms thus have become the only alternative, for people like me who puts the entire focus on COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and safety. Therefore, I’ve been watching a lot on such a platform since the first lockdown—always selecting the best of movies available and the most-talked a
Read more

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma Questions the Time Theory in Indian Classical Music

By -
Image
‘Our ragas are based on time periods like the morning, afternoon, evening and late night hours. But the time slot now-a-days for concerts is 6pm to 10pm due to security reasons or whatever. If we exceed police will come and arrest the artists and the organizers. This means performances can be done only on a few limited ragas again and again. Morning and afternoon concerts are rare and late night concerts whether indoor or outdoor are impossible.’ Said santoor legend Pandit Shivkumar Sharma on 10th January, 2009 at a two-day seminar on ‘Reconsidering Fundamental Issues in Indian Art Music’ organized by ITC Sangeet Research Academy at NCPA, Mumbai. Panditji was speaking at the session on ‘Time Theory’. While making it clear that he was speaking neither for or against the time theory Pandit Shivkumar Sharma elaborated further, ‘In old days we were closer to nature and most concerts were organized outdoor with nature manifested in full glory. Now in air conditioned auditoriums time bec
Read more

Cricket India Vs Australia: India Seal Test Series 3-0, Create History!

By -
Image
India defeated Australia by 6 wickets in the Mohali Test today clinching the Series 3-0 and regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after they lost it 0-4 in Australia. They have indeed created history by the effort. Never before in Test cricket history against Australia have India won more than two Tests in a series and never with a zero margin. Now they have a very good chance of making it 4-0, an exact revenge delivered, in Delhi where the last Test starts from 22 nd March, 2013. India also never won three Tests in a series since 1993-94 when they swept Sri Lanka under the leadership of Mohammad Azharuddin. For Australia they have never lost three Tests in a series since 1988-89 under the leadership of Alan Border. The most positive aspect of the Mohali Test of swinging fortunes is that the match had a nail biting finish in the last moments of the last day converting it into a one-day thriller. Aussie captain Michael Clarke did come in at No. 6 to bat, but he never looked
Read more

Cat O' Nine Tails!

By -
Image
                                                                                                                                                                                                            Neighbors'  Woe!   Non-Owners'  Cat  Vow!   
Read more

England Vs India: Finally COVID-19 Makes A Mess Of The Final Test!

By -
Image
The fifth and the last Test match between hosts England and visitors India was awaited by cricket lovers with much excitement with India taking an unbeatable 2-1 lead winning the fourth Test at the Oval, because the Indian fans wanted their team to seal the series win while the England fans wanted their team to bounce back and win the Test to share the final honors. All of them were in for a huge disappointment though. As soon as the junior physio of Team India tested COVID-19 positive on Thursday, the 9 th of September 2012, a day before the fifth Test was to start at the Old Trafford, total and clueless uncertainty enveloped the match; head coach Ravi Shastri and possibly one or two members of the team management including the senior physio (not confirmed) were already in isolation testing positive before the fourth Test. The practice session for India on that day was cancelled.   Since a physio is obviously to get involved with the players ‘physically’ there were risks of playe
Read more