Special Chabbis

On 19 March 1987 a man calling himself Mohan Singh walked into the Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri jewellery shop near Bombay's Opera House at the head of at least 26 fake CBI officers. He searched the place, took jewellery and cash, and vanished. He was never found. That robbery, and other cons like it from the same years, gave Neeraj Pandey the material for 'Special Chabbis', a Hindi heist thriller he wrote and directed after 'A Wednesday!'.

Ajay Singh (Akshay Kumar) and P. K. Sharma (Anupam Kher), with two more accomplices, travel across 1980s India posing as CBI officers or income tax inspectors. They raid the homes of ministers and traders, walk off with the black money hidden in false ceilings and drawers, and count on the fact that nobody will dare report it. They don't even have to force a door: the local police lend a hand without suspecting a thing.

After the raid on a Delhi minister's house, Sub Inspector Ranveer Singh (Jimmy Shergill), who helped them without knowing it, is suspended and ends up teaming with Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee), an honest officer from the real CBI. While the two close in, Ajay falls for Priya (Kajal Aggarwal), a teacher who's about to be married off to someone else, and the gang plans its biggest job yet in Bombay. It starts with a small ad in the paper.

Akshay Kumar was Pandey's first choice, and the star, fresh from comedies like 'Housefull 2' and 'Khiladi 786', puts away the fists and the broad humour here. Shooting began in Delhi in February 2012, in Chandni Chowk and by the Jama Masjid, before moving on to Kolkata and Mumbai. The crew turned today's Connaught Place back into the 1987 version, period cars and billboards included. It was shot by Bobby Singh, who died in December 2012 and never saw it released.

It opened in India and in British cinemas on 8 February 2013, and in the UK it entered the weekend chart at 13th from just 44 cinemas. At home it was a box office hit. Indian critics were mostly warm, singling out Kher and Bajpayee, though nearly all of them felt the love story didn't belong. Pandey brought Kumar and Kher back for 'Baby' (2015), and in 2018 Vignesh Shivan remade it in Tamil as 'Thaanaa Serndha Koottam', with Suriya in Ajay's role.

• Crime
• Drama
• Thriller