Special 26 | Special Chabbis | Bollywood Movie | Hindi Film Reviews

Neeraj Pandey gave us the exceptionally well movie titled – A Wednesday – as his directorial debut. It was a good movie focusing on outrage and anger of a common-man, and his actions against terrorism. The film has a remarkably well repeat value. And we gotta see the movie periodically on various Hindi channels.

He came up with Special 26 as his second movie as the director. The movie is based on a real life conman from India who alongwith his team performed several fake raids. Sometimes by using the name of IncomeTax department, sometimes CBI and who knows how many other departments he represented (fake of course). A few years ago a Hindi movie named Mr. Natwarlal, starring the legend actor Amitabh Bachchan in the title role, released and was a box office success. It is said that, that movie was inspired by the same conman!

Too many expectations could be there when the director’s previous movie was a hit. And the previous movie of Neeraj Pandey was not only commercially hit but was acclaimed critically as well. So let us try to see if – Special Chhabbis – live up to the mark. Personally I feel that of course the romantic track is weaved nicely in the movie, but it could have been avoided. And what is the need of having songs here?! But they could be part of business, however it slows down the pace of the movie.

Anupam Kher performs well and so do Akshay Kumar. Divya Dutta has smaller role, but she shows her presence. Jimmy Shergil is one of the under rated actor in Hindi Cinema (actually he is not getting much work – of his caliber, rather to say), he plays well. Manoj Bajpai is in form again. The supportive cast plays their part very convincingly. The background music is really good and so does the cinematography. So to say about the performances – they are really nice.

The story is much discussed, but we still don’t want to expose any spoilers. The movie starts with a raid being planned by CBI officers. A minister’s home is targeted for the raid. The CBI officers (Ajay Singh, P.K Sharma) need assistance from police for the same purpose hence the sub inspector (Ranveer Singh) of the police station of the area was asked for the same, along with a lady police constable (Shanti). They all met at the decided place and approach the minister’s home together. The raid is conducted and the officers and their assistants (Jogindar and Iqbal) are able to seize a remarkable amount of undocumented wealth. They then completes the formalities. Signs the papers, get them signed by the minister and then took the seized cash, jewelery and other stuff into their official vehicles. They ask the police sub inspector to stay there and meanwhile the CBI officers will head to the police station, finish some formalities and send the reliever team.

The police sub inspector and the lady constable waited for long but no one came to relieve there, nor was there any message from the income tax officers! It got clear to the sub-inspector that it was the fake raid. The higher authorities are informed! The minister was not interested in filing any complaint or to leak this news anyway. As it can harm his reputation and the seized valuables were the black money. So he cannot expose it anyway. But he takes his revenge with the police sub inspector by getting him suspended.

Angry and ashamed Ranveer decided to resolve the matter by tracing the fake CBI team. He reaches to CBI officer (Wasim Khan) for the same. He starts his hunt for the fake CBI team with help of Wasim Khan and his resources. Will Ranveer and Wasim be able to trace the fake CBI team? Will Ajay, Sharma, Jogindar and Iqbal perform any other raid(s)? Will they be trapped by real CBI? All this questions can be answered by watching the film.

The story is tight (apart from the loose end of love track, as mentioned earlier). The director presents the stuff in more realistic manner (so no larger than the life stuff to be expected) – but that simplicity adds to the value of the film. The background music is competent. The casting is perfect. However it doesn’t reach to the level of “A Wednesday”.

Overall, a nice film based on the real events portrayed in the dramatized manner.