Crook panned by Oz media

Film-maker Mohit Suri's Crook: It’s Good to be Bad has got negative reactions in India as well as Australia. Read on to know more about the movie and controversies surrounding it.

Film-maker Mohit Suri is in a tough spot. Not only has his film, Crook: It’s Good to be Bad, been panned in India, the reaction from Australia to the movie has been equally unkind. The Emraan Hashmi-starrer, which revolves around the alleged racist attacks Down Under, has been called “badly researched”, and accused of “misrepresenting” facts by the media in Oz.According to Australian newspaper, Herald Sun, the film "depicts Melbourne as a city plagued by racial attacks". "In the film, local men are portrayed as beer-guzzling blokes while women are shown as promiscuous, pole-dancing blondes," the paper says.

HT Image

Emraan Hashmi

The film has also not gone down well with Indians in Australia, and Gautam Gupta, spokesman for the Melbourne-based Indian Students Association, has been quoted as saying, "They have performed their research so badly, it’s shocking." Online reactions to the film have also been negative. "This film would be banned in Australia due to the racist content," said a blogger.

“My film is not so impactful that a white guy will start beating up Indians after watching it. I think Australians should watch the film as a cinematic experience. The film does not show them as ‘wrong’,” says Suri.

About allegations that the film is poorly researched, he says, “I have just made a film based on my judgement. At 28, don’t expect me to have a cure to racism worldwide. I have just expressed my opinion.”