Johnny Gaddaar

Johnny Gaddaar, directed by Sriram Raghavan, is an Indian neo-noir about the youngest member of a five man gang, involved in a drug deal set up by a corrupt police contact, who starts killing off his own partners one by one to keep the stolen money. The film is dedicated to thriller masters Vijay Anand and James Hadley Chase; its very title nods to Vijay Anand's Johny Mera Naam, and a character is shown watching that film on television. The film is actually an uncredited adaptation of French writer Alain Reynaud-Fourton's 1962 novel Les Mystifiés; Raghavan has admitted he read the novel while working at the Indian Space Research Organisation. The film underperformed at the box office but grew into a cult classic over time, and was remade in Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil. Who it's for: anyone curious about an Indian neo-noir dense with references to classic Indian thriller cinema, secretly built on an uncredited French novel, that flopped before becoming a cult classic. Who it's not for: those wanting a simple, one layer heist story, since the film is a self aware genre exercise packed with cinematic references.