By Enkayaar, Glamsham Editorial
Who would have thought that Neeraj Pandey after making such an immensely popular film about the trials and tribulations in A WEDNESDAY in his second film would choose the topic of Con men, or how the con men can dupe the system. But scratch beneath the surface, and would find continuity from the premise that Neeraj Pandey had established with A WEDNESDAY. After all, the con men, or the main protagonists of SPECIAL 26 in the form of Akhsay Kumar, Anupan Kher etc., represent the common man who frustrated with those who have bend the system to accumulate wealth for themselves, have tried to settle the score with them, by becoming con men representing authority.In a scenario where the system has left the common man to fend for itself, it is the cinematic imagination and visualization of the aspirations of the common man that continues to be the point of inspiration for the common man to persevere along.
Neeraj Pandey has the potential to emerge as the voice of the common man, and the innate ability to project the day-to-day struggles in a very succinct and defined manner as he has risen from the ranks, i.e. he has lived the life of the common man and has faced the trials and tribulations which added to a sense of authenticity to A WEDNESDAY and he is taking it forward through SPECIAL 26.
A common man is able to emerge as the conman with success on account of the fact that he is aware about all the nuances that pan out on the streets, and knows how to react to the system. What Neeraj Pandey had emphasized in A WEDNESDAY and is taking it one more step forward in SPECIAL 26, is the fact that the system has to reorient itself and establish a dialogue with the common man to understand his problems, or else he or she has the ability to cock a snook in the eyes of the authority.
There could be a viewpoint that cinema does not portray reality, but cinema packages the reality by camouflaging it with fiction in such a manner that the element of reality has a make belief to it, and one only hopes that SPECIAL 26 also emerges as one more benchmark in the history of Indian cinema as A WEDNESDAY has become.
