Bollywood runs out of ideas, cashes in on real life

Reality shots

Be it gangster Manya Surve’s death in a gunfight, ‘bikini killer’ Charles Sobhraj’s jailbreak or the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, real life incidents are finding their way into reel life, spurring Indian cinema’s gradual move towards realistic films.

Filmmakers Ram Gopal Varma, Sanjay Gupta and Anurag Kashyap have sought inspiration from notorious cases and tried to portray them on the big screen.

After highlighting corruption in the police force in his film ‘Department’, Varma has started working on a movie based on the Mumbai terror attack.

Gupta’s ‘Shootout at Wadala’ starring John Abraham, Anil Kapoor and Kangna Ranaut will tell the story of Mumbai police’s first ever registered shootout, resulting in the death of Surve at Wadala in 1982.

Director Kabeer Kaushik is also getting ready to release ‘Maximum’. Set in Mumbai in early 2000, the film shows the nexus between the land mafia and politicians. It features Sonu Sood and Naseeruddin Shah in prominent roles. Sonu says an increasing crime rate has influenced filmmakers to use real life incidents in scripts.

“People are running short of subjects. They don’t have thousands of ideas, so they hunt for topics that happen around us,” says Sonu.

Filmmaker Kumar Mangat plans to bring Sobhraj’s 1986 Tihar jailbreak saga on celluloid in ‘Jailbreak’, while director Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘Buddha in Traffic Jam’ is also based on true incidents.

Anurag Kashyap’s two-part series ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ puts the spotlight on coal and scrap trade mafia at Wasseypur in Jharkhand. ‘Marksheet’ attempts to uncover scams in India’s education sector.

Several filmmakers are also toying with the idea of making a movie on the much-publicised Bhanwari Devi murder case in Rajasthan.

Devi, a nurse, allegedly had an illicit relationship with a minister, due to which she was allegedly abducted and murdered.

Such films are definitely different from the regular Bollywood fare.