Film On Dawood Getting Threats

The crew and cast of a new political satire Coffee With D on the alleged gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s imagined encounter with journalist Arnab Goswami has triggered off a  chain reaction.

Apparently key members of the cast and crew of the film which opens on January 6have been getting threat calls from Dubai asking questions about the film.

While no one from the film’s team is willing to talk on-record a member of the cast admits on condition of anonymity that some members of the cast and crew including leading man Sunil Grover(who plays a journalist named Arnab), Zakir Hussain (who plays ‘D’) and writer-director Vishal Mishra,  have indeed been getting “those calls” from Dubai.

“Though Dawood Ibrahim has not been named in our film reports that our film has a character based on him have reached him. Some of us have been getting  threatening calls demanding to know why we made a film on Dawood Ibrahim without his permission. We have, in fact, not named  him in our film  anywhere.We have only referred to Zakir Hussain’s character as ‘D’ . But now fearful of repercussions we may even change the character’s name entirely,” says the source.

Incidentally the Indian censor board had no problems with certifying Coffee With D without any cuts for a ‘UA’ audience.

Says a  source in the know, “Unlike the films of Ram Gopal Varma, Coffee With Ddoesn’t  glorify global gangsterism. It goes the opposite way by savagely ridiculing recognizable underworld figures.The censor board was happy to certify the film without cuts. But now the filmmakers may have to exercise self-censorship to dodge threats from  the ‘D’ factor.”

The film is  about bringing Dawood to book. Earlier Nikhil Advani made a film D Day on the  same subject with Rishi Kapoor playing Dawood Ibrahim.