Special 26

Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, better known as Natwarlal was a noted con man who operated in the seventies and eighties in India. He was known for having "sold" the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, the Rashtrapati Bhavan and even the House of Parliament to the rich and gullible. Natwarlal was arrested several times, but escaped each time. He was last seen by authorities in 1996 when the 84 year old conman escaped while being transported from prison to a hospital for treatment. Natwarlal was wanted by the cops in 8 states in more than a hundred cases.Once when the judge asked him how he managed to convince people to part with their wealth, he said, “Your honour, I charge a fee (guru dakshina) to teach people. Give me a hundred rupees and I will be happy to tell you the secret.” The judge gave him the hundred rupee note. Natwarlal smiled and said, “This is the method.”Special 26 a film about conmen and how they use fake uniforms and papers to con the unsuspecting and corrupt. This is the second film made by the Kolkata born film maker Neeraj Pandey. His first film was A Wednesday starring Naseeruddin Shah. I love that film. (Read a short review of the film here).The story of Special Chabbis (Special 26) opens with Ajay (Akshay Kumar), Sharmaji (Anupam Kher), Iqbal (Kishore Kadam) and Joginder (Rajesh Sharma), a group of conmen. Their modus operandi is to pose as the team from CBI or the Income Tax department. They pretend to conduct a raid to discover hidden and unaccounted for wealth using fake documents and real confidence. Enter the real CBI officer Wasim Khan played by  Manoj Bajpayee who vows to catch the cons. That's as much of the story I will tell you.Special 26 is based loosely on a high profile heist, carried out at the Opera House branch of Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri jewellery store in Mumbai, when on March 19, 1987, 26 men posing as income tax officials raided the shop and walked away with jewellery worth lakhs.The film begins with two opposing claims. The first one says that this film has no resemblance to any person (living or dead) or incident and any similarity you see if purely coincidental and not intended. Soon after the film declares that is based on a real incident.Neeraj Pandey is a gutsy director to have thought of casting Akshay Kumar as the lead in Special 26. Akshay Kumar is not exactly known for displaying subtle hints of emotion in his films. He is really in his elements in Rowdy Rathod or Singh is Kingg kind of cinematic expression. In Special 26 my heart bled for Akshay. He almost seem shackled in that role. It was only in the bhangra song that he seemed to breathe free.The surprise element of the film is the music. Two songs stood out for me. One was the love ballad called Kaun Mera sung by Chaitra, Papon and Sunidhi Chauhan. The other beautiful song you should watch out for is Mujh Mein Tu (lyrics by Irshad Kamil). This song has been sung by Akhsay Kumar and yes, he has sung it really well. Don't judge his talent for singing based on his ability to act.Anupam Kher as the other con is fantastic (as expected). The two sidekicks played by Kishor Kadam and Rajesh Sharma all sparkle on screen and make you actually root for the conmen. That is until Manoj Bajpayee starts ruling the scene. He has a tremendous screen presence and makes the character come alive. I am just curious why Neeraj Pandey felt compelled to create two women characters who are totally irrelevant to the story. I refer to the characters played by Divya Dutta and Kajal Aggarwal (Akshay's love interest). The love interest looks totally contrived and makes Akshay Kumar especially old when he shares screen space with Kajal Aggarwal. It adds nothing and takes away from the story.Speaking of which Neeraj Pandey has written an awesome story, the screenplay and directed it with maturity that is rare. That is especially admirable because this is only his second film as a director. I want to make a special mention of Vaishnavi Reddy's art direction. The movie is set in mid eighties. From the roads of Lutyen's Delhi to the commercial hub of Kolkata or Opera House area of Mumbai, it is all flawlessly recreated. The ambassador cars, the Lambretta scooters, the odd Maruti 800 cars ... There is even a stock footage of Rajiv Gandhi and Zail Singh taken on 26th Jan 1987 that has been inserted in the story to re-create India in the eighties. There are a few slip ups eg the diesel engine that Railways had introduced much later than '87 or the fleeting sight of the current airport terminal in Delhi etc. But these are completely excusable because the story is so well told. The pace never drops. It is a thriller and lives upto the genre. Why is it called Special 26? You have to see the movie to get the answer to that question.