Crook panned by Oz media

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.

Film-maker Mohit Suri is in a tough spot. Not only has his film,

HT Image

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. 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.

Suri defends, “I am facing flak from both sides. Indians are saying that the film is pro Australia, and they are saying it shows them in bad light. I think Australians should watch the film as a cinematic experience. The film does not show them as ‘wrong’.” About allegations that the film is poorly researched, he says, “I have just made a film. At 28, don’t expect me to have a cure to racism worldwide. I have just expressed my opinion.”