How Special 26 is similar, yet different from A wednesday : Neeraj

The 2008 film, A Wednesday,
which Pandey wrote and
directed, was a nuanced film that
pitted Hindi film powerhouses
Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam
Kher against each other. The film
with a strong social comment
earned both critical and
commercial success and made
Pandey a film-maker to watch
out for.
With his second film as director,
Special 26, releasing on 8
February, Pandey carries the
burden of fulfilling the promise
he showed four years ago, but
he remains unaffected. "Making
this film is not too different from
A Wednesday; you still have the
action-cut-roll routine," he says
at the office of his company,
Friday Filmworks, in Mumbai.
"That's what life does… on any
day, you are not thinking such
things (expectations). Once in a
while, on an off-day, you may get
the thought but you don't live
with it.
"When someone asks the
question, like you do now," he
says, smiling, "I am thinking
about it, but it's not a recurring
thought."
Special 26 is based on a real
incident in 1987 when 28
people, pretending to be officers
of the Central Bureau of
Investigation, walked into a
jewellery store in Zaveri Bazaar.
Their leader said he was from
the Research and Analysis Wing
(RAW) and they were
investigating the quality of the
jewels sold. He then walked out
with "samples" worth over Rs.35
lakh and was never seen again,
according to newspaper reports.
"I read a news item around
2000-01 of unsolved cases in
Mumbai and this incident caught
my eye for the reason that it was
so cerebral in its execution," says
Pandey. "There was not much
technology then, so this is the
story of a true confidence artist."
Akshay Kumar plays the lead role
in Pandey's film, which is a
fictionalized account of the
incident. "Akshay, for me, is an
actor in the film. It was clear
right from Day 1, he understood
that he is here as an actor, not as
a star," explains Pandey on why
the casting for his second film is
so different from his first.
Pandey started out writing love
stories, he says, which were
never made into films before A
Wednesday happened. But even
if both his films seem to have
similar elements of law enforcers
and the chase, he considers the
two to be quite different. "A
Wednesday got people thinking
and it moved people," says
Pandey. "Because of the genre
and topic, it was a relevant film.
This (Special 26) is not in that
space. It's more of a caper film
and hence is totally different. Is it
more irreverent? Yes, because
it's an unapologetic tale of this
guy who did what he did."
Pandey's research for the film is
based on newspaper reports,
which stayed with him since he
first read about this incident
over a decade ago. He says the
massive production included
costumes that represent the
1980s, transporting Connaught
Place to the same period, besides
the ensemble cast that includes
Manoj Bajpai and Jimmy Shergill.
There was also a coincidental
meeting, during the shoot in
Mumbai, with an employee of the
hotel in which the gang leader
stayed after the heist.
"It's a completely commercial
film," says Pandey. "It's got
songs because the scale is
bigger, and because it's a film
where you can have a lot of fun.
I love that format, as long as it
does not go against the grain,
and I grew up on it. There was
no such scope in A Wednesday,
that's something I was clear
about."
He says the biggest compliment
he received after A Wednesday
was when a couple of children
said they would join the police
force after seeing the film. "This
one though," he pauses, "tells
you exactly what not to do".
Special 26 is scheduled to release
on 8 February.

www.livemint.com/Leisure/LObTb3oKjpk8dHXiaKFkAL/A-special-second.html

can't wait ...and i love it when some one like Neeraj is having such huge confidence in Akki as an ACTOR👏