Not the first film to copy a game.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: A software engineer is arrested for allegedly planning bomb explosions in Mumbai, Kashmir and Guwahati. This is the premise of Bollywood’s new anti-terrorist thriller: 18.11: A Code of Secrecy.
The film released in theaters this past Friday, starring rather unknown faces. It received a lot of attention mostly from the gaming community as a lot of 18.11 seemed to have been ripped off Ubisoft’s new game: Watch Dogs.
Usually with Bollywood films it’s either the plot or the premise, like in Koi Mil Gaya, or the style of the characters like Krrish 3. 18.11: A Code of Secrecy copied the Ubisoft game’s posters just days after the game was released to the public. However, the film itself has little resemblance to the game except for some references to some extraordinary software which is one of the most important elements of the plot of Watch Dogs.
Watch Dogs is an open world action adventure game while 18.11 focuses mostly on terrorism in India.
This is not the first time Bollywood, or Indian cinema for that matter, is ripping off from a game. Yash Raj Film’s Ek Tha Tiger closely resembles Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series and Tamil film Velayutham is a lot like Assassin’s Creed, only with a lot of dancing. But these two films came a long time after the release of the games, whereas the posters of 18.11 were released almost immediately after the release of Watch Dogs. In this film Rehal Khan, the hero has donned an attire that closely resembles the attire of Aiden Pierce with a black trench coat and a cap and holding a phone in one hand and a gun in the other.
18.11 fell flat on its face in the box office upon its release. Neither the people nor the critics liked the film.
Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India writes, “The film has its heart in the right place but the execution is way too idealistic and far-fetched for your liking. Terrorism is too intricate an issue to be dealt with so lightly. We are sure the real terrorists don’t hold placards, acknowledging their identity! You see that happening here. Some men with Afghan accents are shown chanting ‘terrorism zindabad’ slogans, which is insanely naive and quite hilarious.”