Basic Info:
- Release: 8 February 2013
- Director / Writer: Neeraj Pandey
- Language: Hindi
- Genre: Period Heist Thriller based on true events
- Starring: Akshay Kumar, Kajal Aggarwal, Manoj Bajpayee, Jimmy Sheirgill, Anupam Kher
- Based on: The real 1987 Opera House heist where 26 people posing as CBI officials raided a jewellery store in Bombay
The Plot:
Set in the late 1980s. Ajay Singh (Akshay Kumar) leads a team of 4 conmen – P.K. Sharma (Anupam Kher), Joginder and Iqbal. They have a perfect plan: they call the local police station, get extra police force, pose as CBI officers and conduct fake raids on corrupt politicians and businessmen who have huge black money.
No one reports them because the victims can’t explain their black money.
After successful raids in Delhi and Kolkata, real CBI officer Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) and suspended cop Ranveer Singh (Jimmy Sheirgill) join hands to catch them.
For their final, biggest job, Ajay does something crazy – he puts an ad in the newspaper for “50 dynamic graduates” and recruits 26 of them to become his “Special 26”. He trains them for a mock CBI raid on a big jewellery shop in Mumbai.
The twist: While Waseem thinks he has outsmarted Ajay by planting his own men and replacing real jewellery with fake, Ajay has already played a bigger game. The real raid happens at the workshop where the jewellery was shifted. In the end Khan realizes he was fooled from the very beginning and even laughs at their brilliance.
The film ends in Sharjah Cricket Stadium where Ajay and team are watching a match peacefully – still uncaught.
Why people love it:
It’s not a typical masala movie. No over-the-top action. It’s a well-paced, smartly-written and brilliantly-performed film about intelligence, confidence and timing. Critics called it one of the best films of the year.
https://rumble.com/v78c0x4-legal-thieves-the-fake-cbi-raid-that-fooled-everyone-.html
