Friday Release 'Special Chabbis': If it's as good as 'Wednesday', we've much to cheer

New Delhi: Bollywood director Neeraj Pandey burst on to the scene in 2008 with his thriller 'A Wednesday', starring Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher. He returns after five years with 'Special Chabbis' with Kher again as one of the lead characters and if it's anything like the acclaimed 'A Wednesday', the film might just be the sleeper hit of the year.

Actor Manoj Bajpayee, who stars in the film, said he became such a big fan of Pandey after watching his film 'A Wednesday' that he kept pestering him to take him in one of his films. Bajpayee plays a CBI officer in the film.

'Special Chabbis' opens in theatres on February 8 and also stars Akshay Kumar, Jimmy Shergill and Kajal Aggarwal.

Special Chabbis

Bajpayee said he turned to his real-life CBI friends for help to pick up tips. "I have constantly been in contact with my CBI friends about their work and their role. If I have any doubt, I directly contact them to clarify it and correct my role," Manoj said in a statement.

The caper-heist adventure film recreates a true-life incident in March 1987, where a bunch of conmen posing as CBI officers raided a well-known jewellery store in Mumbai and walked away with loot worth lakhs of rupees.

Pandey stressed on the fact that his film is not a documentary-styled blow-by-blow recreation of the real events, but a fast-paced thriller where the characters are not just many steps ahead of the law, but also a few steps ahead of audiences' expectations.

Pandey's penchant for turning real-life dilemmas into thrillers is perhaps indicative of the direction that mainstream Hindi cinema must take to follow masses into a mature viewing habit.

The film is a major release for the imaginative production company Viacom18 Motion Pictures, who are constantly pushing the envelope in the right direction with films like 'Kahaani' and 'Inkaar'. This time, the banner is pitched against the other big player in the production field UTV Motion Pictures, just as Akshay Kumar is pitched against Prabhudheva.

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