Movie Review: Special 26..is a pretty special watch

 

If you are one of those rare but extremely lucky ones who has not even seen the trailers of this much hyped offering by Neeraj Pandey, you are in for quite a treat – just book your tickets immediately (you could even choose to stop reading this review right here). However, if you are one of the many who have seen the trailer and know the whole ‘real is fake’ drama the movie revolves around – then the first hour of this two and a half hour heist offering will probably look very familiar. But don’t fret, there’s plenty of fun to be had and you are still bound to come out with a big smile on your face

A Wednesday, Neeraj Pandey’s first, was stellar – a tightly packaged, well paced thriller with quite a thrill as you neared the climax. There were no unnecessary songs or scenes and the entire focus was on plot narration and letting the script itself be the winner. Special 26, though, is not as flawless – in fact, it falls prey to the stereotypical Bollywood act and has an unnecessary love angle with 3 songs for company. Moreover, the pacing tends to slow down unnecessarily on multiple occasions. Thankfully, though, by the end of it all Pandey more than redeems himself and you distinctly get the feeling that he’s quite managed to pull it off again, despite those hiccups

Heist movies aren’t the best genre that Bollywood has, to offer. Most of the recent ones tend to have the plot clearly lifted from successful Hollywood movies - the Oceans series, Italian Job, Usual Suspects etc come to mind. With Special 26 though, Pandey comes up with a high class act with its own original script and thrills to be had. In fact, this is one of these rare movies where even if you’ve managed to guess it the entire way through, you'll still revel in the discovery and enjoy the movie just as much. While its tempting – I won’t reveal more…

For a movie set in the 1980s there is incredible attention to detail – right from the cars, attire to even the initial casting being reminiscent of those days. Camerawork is snazzy and effective with high quality wide angle shots and equally effective close up scenes. Background score is liberally used and adds to the pacing and tension in certain scenes

Performances are top notch as well with the veteran Anupam Kher leading from the front, despite Akshay Kumar playing the main character. His versatility is clearly on display and he plays his character with great aplomb. Manoj Bajpai puts in his usual dependable performance as does Jimmy Shergill while Kajal Agarwal has too little role to be of notice

So the verdict is this – while it may not be as picture perfect as his debut, as far as heist movies go, Neeraj Pandey delivers a pretty ‘special’ offering – don’t miss it