The crime thriller genre is one of the most popular genres when it comes to movies. And when you add a tinge of reality to it, it’s just the recipe for the perfect mass entertainer. Here are a few such films on real-life robberies and robbers.
The crime thriller genre is one of the most popular genres when it comes to movies. And when you add a tinge of reality to it, it’s just the recipe for the perfect mass entertainer. While Hollywood has done it quite often, with many of their crime thrillers being adapted from real life robberies, in Bollywood, there have been a few films which have won the critics as well as the audiences with their onscreen impressions of real-life robberies and robbers.
Here's taking you down memory lane and revisiting a few such films which were loved by one and all:
Everyone adored the adorable con artists Bunty and Babli, who were played onscreen by Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukerji. The story revolves around this couple, who attempt to cheat wealthy individuals out of their money. So much so that they even succeed in selling the Taj Mahal to a buyer. The film was loosely based on a similar real-life pair in Nagpur, according to a report. A year before to the film's release, in 2004, Sidhharth Jay Marathe and Maya Marathe were arrested for a scam involving Rs 500 crores. The couple moved from one location to another and kept on deceiving and scamming others. In Delhi, where their scheme was finally exposed, they even established a phoney stock brokerage business. The film also starred Amitabh Bachchan who as the cop who was behind these two. The film was the first time when Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan shared screen space together. Not just that, even the duo shared a raunchy item song with Aishwarya Rai who would later on go to be married to Abhishek Bachchan in real life. The film had a sequel ‘Bunty Aur Babli 2’, which sadly didn’t do well at the box-office.
Dibakar Banerjee tells the life story of Delhi's well-known ‘Bunty Chor’. It is actually one of the greatest films of that decade, and Abhay Deol gave a superb performance. The charisma with which Abhay Deol played the character made it not only memorable, but even lovable, despite the fact that it was the story of a master thief. For the unversed, the Delhi police encountered difficulties when the compulsive thief Devinder Singh, alias Bunty, managed to trick them repeatedly for a while before being apprehended. After the release of the Abhay Deol starrer movie, Bunty soon gained greater notoriety. So much so that he even made an appearance on ‘Bigg Boss’.
The historic Mumbai Opera House theft of 1987 was the inspiration for this crime thriller. The film starred Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpayee, Kajal Aggarwal and many others. The story revolves around a crew of con artists who conducted a tax raid while posing as false CBI agents at the Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri & Sons Jewellers shop in Mumbai. This was one of the numerous cons that they pulled over. The film was a massive success at the box-office, and established Akshay Kumar as an actor who could do more than action and comedy films.
Several real-life incidents served as inspiration for Sonam Kapoor's comedy film about a con woman who turns bride and who marries affluent men just so she can steal their fortunes. According to accounts, a similar con woman from Uttar Pradesh gained notoriety when she was rumoured to marry guys and loot them immediately after the wedding. This bit of information motivated several other ladies to copy her, which led to the creation of the persona. The film also starrer Rajkummar Rao, Varun Sharma and Pulkit Samrat in the lead roles.