Round of applause to whole team of Special 26! Akki, Anupam, Jimmy, Manoj - phatte chak te!! 👏 Special salaam to Akshay Kumar for choosing this film (given his bad/patchy script choices). Oh My God and Special 26, that's the kind of work this man ought to do!
I always thought of Akki as a so so actor, many times intimate scenes in his films and suggestive dialogues made me feel he was cheap...I mean I didn't really have respect for him and considered him timepass hero. I ignored him even in Hera Pheri and watched it more for Paresh and Sunil.
Later I came to admire his resilience, stable family life (particularly what he did as a dedicated son in law, which is rare) and achieving formidable status as a star (at BO). Still I didn't respect him as an actor or cinema person (sorry! No offense to his fans...)
But OMG and Special 26...dil aur dimaag dono jeet liya yaar! *Respect respect respect*
May God bless him with sense to choose only such good films and reject trash like K-786 outright! This man has capability beyond dance, intimate scenes and action!! He was good in Sangharsh and Mohra also but these two recent films, according to me, raised his respect a lot. Especially when we see hyped shit of other stars (some touted as geniuses or gamechangers or global icons) fall flat (case of oonchi dukaan pheeka pakwaan!).
No foreign locations, no pre-release or post-release hoopla, no shameless success parties, a garbage film like K-786 behind him, no major production house, no stunts, no flying bikes or cars, no stripping by hero or heroine, no item song, nothing "modern"...yet fantastic heist film! I don't claim to have all knowledge of Hindi cinema but I'd rank Special 26 among the Best suspense/heist films ever made in Bollywood. There, I said it!!!
I was miffed by the rather abrupt and open ending but got excited to learn that they are going to have its sequel also! I'll be the first one to book my ticket for the sequel when it comes!!
I've already written lengthy posts on OMG in past on some threads in this forum so I won't write again about it (it's brilliant and gutsy and one of the best films of the 2010s decade, arre all time also!).
I know likes of Akshay Kumar get little media acknowledgement, little respect and he (plus Manoj, Anupam, Paresh types) get royally ignored at awards also. But I wrote this only to extend my respect, appreciation as a member of audience to Akshay Kumar for these recent films.
Neeraj Pandey and Umesh Shukla (he's the man behind OMG, right?), make MORE films guys!!!!
Had OMG and Special 26 been the usual you-know-who media darlings' films they'd been lavishly rewarded and whatnot.
I had no hope for a quality film this year, given everyone was into sequels or commercial potboilers. But Special 26 was a wonderful surprise! Here's hoping more surprises come this year. Wishing Akshay and others continue to focus more on sensible yet fun films.
There's still hope...and Akshay, you're not as cheap or faltu (as a cinema person) as I used to think of you.
As a viewer I wish we get more such sensible, fab, simple (no gaalis, no sex, no shosha for shock value) and well paced films.
I know there's been threads on this film and recently watched films in this forum before. But I felt I just had to write something to convey my appreciation and respect for an actor who I'd so underrated forever and a team which probably wouldn't even earn a nomination in stupid "awards" next year.
2