Lootcase director Rajesh Krishnan on plagiarism claims: ‘Just because there is a money bag doesn’t mean entire story is same’

Responding to allegations of plagiarism, Lootcase director Rajesh Krishnan said that his film was conceptualised in 2014, while the Nepalese film Jatra came out in 2016.

Director Rajesh Krishnan, who is making his feature film debut with Lootcase, felt ‘bad’ when his lead actor Kunal Kemmu was not invited to be a part of the virtual press conference to announce Disney+ Hotstar’s new line-up. However, he respects the decisions of the producers, who gave him a free hand to make the film.

Lootcase, directed by Rajesh Krishnan, will release on July 31.

“First of all, I got to know about it very late. I would have liked to know about this. Would I have liked to see Kunal there? Yes, I would have definitely liked to see him, but look, I’m a debutant filmmaker. You can’t fault me for expecting the stars and the moon from the producers that I am working with. For me, Kunal is no less than Shah Rukh Khan,” he told Hindustan Times in an interview.

“You have to see things from my perspective. I would definitely want to see him. I did feel bad about it, but I also have enough reason to believe that the film is as important to the producers as it is to us. They gave us as much freedom to make the film as I would like to give them to run the marketing stuff. If I was the producer or the guy financing the film, how I would go about it is a different story. But at this point in time, from what I understand, even if I disagree with what they are doing, I will respect it,” he added.

Ever since the trailer of Lootcase dropped online, people have pointed out similarities with a Nepalese film, Jatra, that came out in 2016. Krishnan said that even as an ad filmmaker, he never took up projects where his clients asked him to remake other advertisements.

“If you just go to Google and search for movies about money bags, you will find at least 50 films right now, starting from A Simple Plan to No Country For Old Men to U Turn. So the plot line of people getting a bag of money is like saying, ‘You have shown the sky in your film but we have also shown the sky. How can you do that?’ Or ‘You have used the sun in your film.’ There is only one sky and one sun. Just because there is a money bag, it doesn’t mean that the entire story is the same. I have enough evidence to show that the film was conceptualised in 2014. I believe Jatra came out only in 2016.”

Krishnan added that men chasing a treasure was ‘not the most original idea’ but what makes a film along these lines stand out is how one weaves in their sense of morality, perspective and real-life incidents into the story. “If you’re going to basically judge me by the cover of the book, then honestly, you are missing out on some great entertainment,” he said.

Lootcase stars Kunal Kemmu, Rasika Dugal, Vijay Raaz, Ranvir Shorey and Gajraj Rao. Krishnan said that he was very clear that he wanted to work with ‘actors’. “That’s a very loaded word, when you call somebody an actor. You have to understand that it comes from advertising where there were times when I had to shoot with models. Few times, though, I have been fairly uncompromising in my approach to even advertising,” he said.

Krishnan called himself the ‘anti-ad filmmaker’, who wanted ‘real people’ in his commercials, instead of ‘good-looking faces’. “I have been very lucky, even in advertising, to work with actors. But on a few occasions, when there would be models who could not act but were there because of a pretty looking face, we have suffered,” he said.

The director said that he could not see himself compromise, as he has great respect for his work. “Can you imagine the suffering for 45 days of shooting with somebody? So, we were very clear about the fact that we wanted to work with actors and if we had to wait for another two years, we would do that. Fortunately for us, what happened is that we pretty much got all the actors that we had on our wish list,” he said, adding that the beauty of working with ‘actors’ was that they put the film before themselves.

Krishnan has a tinge of regret that Lootcase could not release in theatres. “Well, there will always be a little regret. I mean, who doesn’t want to see his film in a theatre? I would still kill to see my film in a theatre but it is not meant to be. There is no solution, it’s life,” he said.

Choosing to focus on the positive aspects, he said, “We knew back in March that going into a theatre was not possible and if you just look around you right now, you realise that there is so much despondency. There is joblessness, death… At some point in time, it was just a random statistical figure, but today, these are people you know who are dying. At a time like this, if you can be that one little ray of light that can bring a little laughter into somebody’s living room, through an OTT platform, I’ll take it.” He added that the kind of reach Disney+ Hotstar has is a bonus.

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