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In 2008, Neeraj Pandey’s debut movie, A Wednesday, caught everyone by surprise. It was a hard-hitting film with powerful performances by Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher, and also made a strong political statement. Pandey showed his mettle as a storyteller in A Wednesday and continues to be in fine form in his second movie, Special 26.
Set in the 1980s, Special 26 is “inspired by a true incident” in which a band of conmen, posing as officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation and income tax department, conducted fake raids at the homes of businessmen and politicians. The four conmen, played by Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Rajesh Sharma and Kishore Kadam, go about masterminding various heists. Manoj Bajpayee plays the “real” CBI officer who desperately wants to nab them.
If the movie had been set in any other era but the 1980s, it wouldn’t have been believable. But Pandey captures the India of the 1980s really well — his attention to detail is an absolute treat. For instance, the only cars you see on the roads are Premier Padminis, Ambassadors and old Maruti 800s. The Delhi auto-rickshaws are the old models and the now-bustling Rajiv Chowk, is shown as the quiet and quaint Connaught Place of the 80s.
The first half of Special 26 is based in Delhi; the action shifts to Mumbai (then Bombay, of course) in the second half with Calcutta featuring intermittently. Even here, Pandey has been very careful with keeping to the period — the Mumbai bus stops have hoardings of “Thril” soft drink and autos the posters of the Amitabh Bachchan-Dilip Kumar starrer Shakti. There are old cordless phones, currency notes used in the 80s, people read magazines like the Illustrated Weekly of India and even the luggage which the characters carry is true to the period.
If Pandey’s first film was a commentary on terrorist violence and the stereotyping of Muslims, in Special 26 he tackles the issue of corruption, which has such a resonance now and was especially rampant in the 1980s.
Bajpayee, for instance, plays an honest cop who asks his boss for an increment and promotion, opening the conversation with the classic line, “Sir, rishwat lena shuru kar doon (should I start accepting bribes)?” Business-men and politicians are shown to hide money in car seats, hidden compartments in book shelves or make false ceilings and stuff wads of notes there.
Kher delivers a solid performance as the senior-most conman, the father of eight children and another on the way — “hamare time mein TV nahin hota thha” (there was no TV in our time) is his justification. Post Gangs of Wasseypur, Bajpayee continues to show that he is one of the finest actors around. His character comes late in the film but Pandey couldn’t have done better with his casting. Jimmy Shergill has very few lines but is spot on as the naive cop who is easily conned.
Akshay Kumar, however, is a revelation, considering that he seems to have mastered mindless entertainment of late. Surprisingly, he shines in a role with no loud dialogues, no over the top histrionics — all of which help his movies make Rs 100 crore. You don’t expect him to do justice to the character of a calm, composed and reserved mastermind of audacious cons, but he does. The romantic subplot between Kumar and the forgettable Kajal Aggarwal is, perhaps, the film’s one flaw. Pandey could have easily done away with it as all it does is slow down the action.
