Special 26: The Aam Aadmi Strikes Back

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And even though the rebels of Special 26 only occasionally raise their hands, the damage they do is far more sweeping than what plain, one dimensional violence can achieve. And so when a cop says, “Kahin chullu hhar paani milega..paani..chullu bhar?,” we cannot help grinning. And not because an upright system has shamed a few crooks but the crooks have shamed the law. Moral ambiguity with white collars, we realise then, can be a lot of fun as long as the story does not cross certain lines. Also it is hard to empathise with victims of the heists in the film because they are corpulent leaders with crores stuffed in their false ceilings, business men with fudged accounts and men for whom corruption and power mean the same thing. It is easy however to feel for the four men who target them.  Akshay Kumar is easy to root for because he is Akshay Kumar. Anupam Kher has a family packed with children of many ages because as he says, “Hamare zamane mein TV nahin hota tha!”  Kishore Kadam’s Iqbal is a loving husband  and father and Rajesh Sharma’s Joginder is another middle-class face in the crowd just like you and me.

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 We don’t know why these men decide to  fake law enforcement to break it  but the film laughs and winks at the irony of a few crooks pretending to be upright CBI officers and walking away with boxes full of ill-begotten wealth.

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Neeraj Pandey whose A Wednesday brought back with a punch the tradition of heroic monologues, power-packed face-offs and applause worthy dialogue,  enjoyably repeats some of his signature riffs here too. Two groups of people working for the law and against it. Fluid long shots taking in the tension and the interplay of characters as they elaborately strategise to outwit each other. Conversations and tip offs and  leads that in the end lead to a major twist in the tale. Mr Pandey can tell a story and how! The best part is his technique is that he remains focussed on the story and never deviates from the point.

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He is part of a bunch of directors who understand that the 70s and the 80s had a certain mood, an innocence, a certain ‘saadgi‘ if you please and a vibe that can never come back but can be emulated or paid a tribute to and he has done that beautifully in this film by recreating the India of the 80s. He is also one of the few film makers like Tigmanshu Dhulia and a few others who believe that India is a story that can endlessly told and foreign locales are not necessary to connect with the audience. And he is a good judge of actors. Manoj Bajpayi as the unsparing CBI cop has many sides. Of the indulgent father who carries his kid on his shoulders to the school bus. The conservative husband who does not like his wife to appear outside the gate without her dupatta. A driven workaholic who sometimes steals a few snores at work and takes the affront to law very personally. Bajpai glides through all these parts and  his edgy, always watchful, leashed energy is rivetting.

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Anupam Kher plays a bumbling counterpoint to his authoritative role in A Wednesday. And then there is Jimmy Shergill, a trifle underused but still hugely likeable. This is well-woven ensemble and it is easy to see why Akshay Kumar was needed to complete the mix. He even without the usual goofiness and starry aura is a star. Someone you will watch because he will guide the eye in a frame and keep it focussed even though the story is event driven rather than character centric. I even liked his understated love story with Kajal Aggarwal with its gaze and silence driven communication much before Facebook and the Internet took the romance and the suspense out of love.

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The songs were a dead giveaway  that Pandey is now thinking of the box office but then who can blame him. Let us just be grateful that in an industry thick with wannabe 100 crore makers, here is a film maker who wants to tell unusual, well crafted stories. We can argue about the ‘message’ of  A Wednesday (where killing terrorists was equated with pest control) or Special 26  but then we are no longer a Republic of right and wrong. We are a Republic of who can get away with what, of might that is always right, power that can do no wrong and where the aam aadmi  is dispensable.

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In both A Wednesday, and Special 26, the aam aadmi strikes back. These are not angry young men of the past bashing the baddies but people like you and me who want to make a point. We may not agree with their methods, their ideology or their ways of striking back but there is no denying that what these men are up against is far more rotten than they are. The twinges of moral discomfort aside, these are films that make us feel..dare I say it..good? And if that is the case..Neeraj Pandey is a filmmaker who perhaps knows that heroism today must be an alloy to survive. That it must have a bit of impurity too, Otherwise Special 26 would have been made from the point-of-view of an infallible CBI cop rather than the men who succeed in fooling him.

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