Shyam Madiraju’s Masterful ‘55’ Isn’t Just a Film. It’s a Gut Punch Dressed Up As a Street Fable

Jet-lagged and restless after my recent return from Mumbai, I found myself unable to focus. The books and magazines I had accumulated on my trip to India remained shut, my pen idle. My usual rhythm of reading and writing had dissolved in the fog of time zones and the conundrum of chores, identities, and languages spanning two continents.

Then, almost absentmindedly, I started watching a screener of an Indian-American thriller called “55.” What began as a distraction quickly turned into an emotional plunge. The narrative gripped me from the get-go and refused to let go.

“55” isn’t just a film. It’s a gut punch dressed as a street fable — an Oliver Twist-like tale of destiny, hard choices, and redemption set in the blistering chaos of Mumbai. I grew up in Mumbai, and I know its layered existence. The bustling metropolis demands mutual coexistence between vastly different lives. Survival isn’t a choice but a reflex, and money is often the only proof of identity.

The story orbits around a group of orphaned boys: street rats, pickpockets, and scam artists, living under the iron thumb of Sagar Bhai, played memorably by Emraan Hashmi. Sagar is a limping, bespectacled man who quotes philosophers with the cold detachment of someone who once believed in dreams but has since calcified into something much darker. He treats the children not as people but as units. Nameless, numbered, disposable. Their loot that is pickpocketed day and night is pooled and divided. Their loyalty is demanded. The rules are clear: break them, and the consequences are brutal.

Among them is our protagonist: 55 or pachpan, played hauntingly by Rizwan Shaikh. Nicknamed Butterfingers, he is sharp-eyed, nimble, and older than his age. More than just a petty thief. Sagar knows this. He’s a dreamer. A spark in the ash. He has humanity. He can make friends even in the darkness around him.

I often wonder: Was the person who stole from my father a pickpocket from a gang of thieves? Or did he need that money for a daughter’s dowry, for a life-saving medical treatment? “55” brought that memory flooding back. 

Then one day, 55 steals a bag on a local train. ₹1.5 lakhs meant for a father’s final gesture of dignity: his daughter’s dowry to set up a small business for her betrothed. It’s a tragically familiar story in India. But this time, it leads to something horrific. Stripped of all hope, the man jumps in front of a train.

And 55 sees it. Recognizes him. And suddenly, stealing is no longer a game, no longer anonymous loot ready for the taking.

Riddled with guilt and a kind of grief he’s too young to fully understand, 55 goes to the man’s home. In a rare act of redemption, he tries to return the money by working overtime. But life, as always, is cruel. He’s caught. Injured. Left to rot.

Until — a glimmer of home comes from an unexpected source.

A bail.
 A birth certificate.
 A new identity.
 A life beyond the number inked on his skin.

This story pierced something in me.

It reminded me of the Mumbai I had just left behind. I have visited many times. The masses of people in its crowded buses, local trains, taxis, and autos. The struggle of people trying to run through their life on overcrowded platforms. One day at a time. The moral burden of survival, the children who disappear into shadows at traffic signals, and the hum of a city that forgives nothing but forgets everything.

It reminded me, too, of something deeply personal.

Years ago, my father lost the exact amount of money ₹1.5 lakhs that he had withdrawn from the bank to pay a vendor. A man had tailed him from the branch, and when he paused at the airport ticket counter to check in, he had put his briefcase down for just a second, two fingers clicked open the lock and stole the bundles of cash. Just like that. My father was taken aback, traumatized for some time. It was a large sum of  hard-earned money. For months after, he clutched his briefcase tightly and, for the first time, used a combination lock. His trust in the city had been shaken.

I often wonder: Was the person who stole from my father a pickpocket from a gang of thieves? Or did he need that money for a daughter’s dowry, for a life-saving medical treatment? “55” brought that memory flooding back. In a city like Mumbai, these incidents are not aberrations, they are rhythms. And yet, we keep returning. We keep moving. And each time we return home unscathed, we marvel at how we weren’t robbed… because somehow, in that overwhelming chaos, there are still millions who make an honest living.

Watching “55,” I thought of all the journeys we’ve taken across that city. The auto rides, the local trains, the near-misses, and the small miracles. I thought of the many Sagar Bhais we pass unknowingly… and the 55s we never see until they break the rules of their world in an attempt to enter ours.

Screenplay by Shahin Khosravan and Shyam P. Madiraju, the dimly lit streets of Mumbai come alive under Madiraju’s masterful direction. The film is grounded in gritty realism that never slips into poverty porn or melodrama. Emraan Hashmi brings a quiet, menacing intensity. But it is Rizwan Shaikh, as 55, who leaves you stunned. His performance is raw, tender, and unforgettable. The cinematography captures Mumbai as both a predator and a cradle. High-rises looming over tin rooftops of sprawling slums, laughter threading through fear, stolen milk, and bread shared like a prayer.

What stayed with me the most, however, was the gentle presence of Uma, played with quiet grace by Dhanshree Patil: the young girl whose dowry money was stolen. Her moral courage, her forgiveness, her sacrifice. She sees into the soul of the boy who once peered into her home as a thief. Uma shows 55 that he can be more than a number. She is, as Sagar Bhai says: “A woman worth crying for.”

Ridley Scott who co-produced the film with Paul Feig et al. called “55” “simple, personal, and beautiful.” Paul Feig described it as “an emotional crowd-pleaser… sometimes scary, sometimes funny, and always engaging.”

This film holds up a mirror to the unseen and the unnamed, and quietly asks whether we are truly in any capacity to judge the pick-pockets. We all have been victims of white collar crimes, and often those perpetrators go unscathed. But poverty always bears the tattoo of criminality.

“55” is not just a film that deserves to be watched. It’s one that demands to be remembered.

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With one foot in Huntsville, Alabama, the other in her birth home, India, and a heart steeped in humanity, Monita Soni writes as a contemplative practice. She has published hundreds of poems, movie reviews, book critiques, and essays, and contributed to combined literary works. Her two books are My Light Reflections and Flow Through My Heart. You can hear her commentaries on Sundial Writers Corner, WLRH 89.3 FM.