Its been ages since I reviewed a movie here, typically because every time I dropped by MS after watching a movie that I had an opinion on, most of my views matched the reviewers and I didn’t feel the need to add much. That?s obviously not the case with Boom, which I watched recently and was surprised - pleasantly. I really liked it.
I thought it was hilarious and probably Amitabh?s best role as an adult performer in a comic role. What follows is less of a proper review (which is admittedly really late thus the title of the review) and a lot of responses to comments in other reviews.
Its a movie about ’’fashion extortion’’ - its a movie about the scary, shrewd gangsters and the dumb models. Its also about stereotypes - how they don’t always hold true. All the characters were well sketched and their motivations were clear; greed and/or fear. Each character was driven by desire for more, whether it was power or money. The movie explored how the gangsters and models all pretended to get along but the voice over that let us into their heads showed that they weren’t entirely fond of each other.
Boom kicks off with a catfight that leads to one model losing a lot of diamonds that she was smuggling. I?ve read some of the reviews stating that the biggest loophole in the plot was how the gangsters rounded up three models instead of catching the girl who tripped and lost the diamonds to the greedy paparazzi and audience. The gangsters needed a scapegoat. They wanted their ?babies back?, at any cost.
Since the girl directly responsible for the incident smartly disappeared, they got hold of the model that?d tripped her (and her friends) and gave them their options. Besides, aside from the fact that this is a MOVIE and therefore, fiction, since when have anything that gangsters have done in real life or on celluloid made some sort of sense to anyone? Shooting the messenger who tells the big Don that his son is dead (as seen in countless movies) makes a lot more sense, right?
Another thing that everyone seems highly offended by is the language and nudity. Unless none of you have ever seen an English movie, complaining about skimpy clothes and calling it nudity seems a bit far fetched. It?s a REALISTIC movie, its about the fashion industry, women do run around half naked on the ramp and in their dressing rooms. The scene where they discuss their breasts is extremely close to reality (for the record) ? all women (Indian, paki, american, European) talk about their bodies. Showing it in a movie is an accurate representation of ?girl talk?. Just like men have been shown countless times discussing women over booze, and no one has raised eyebrows, maybe its time to open minds a little bit and allow the realism of women talking about themselves to seep through. Don?t tell me this does not need to be shown on film because in that case, the male bar and urinal conversations are just as redundant and unnecessary.
And more on the nudity: its so hypocritical to think its ok for heroes to bury their heads in the heroines breasts while she’s wearing a skimpy sari blouse with cleavage on show and then pick on a movie like Boom which shows about the same amount of cleavage in western outfits with no man?s face near it ? just a finger. And the woman under Jackie?s table ? that was one of the funniest scenes ? try and see humor in situations that are actually pretty realistic instead of jumping onto the popular bandwagon of defending a culture that barely exists anymore because its easier to be self righteous than honest.
And the language: Dharmender has been screaming kutay kameenay for the last two decades in cinema, no one commented. All sort of language was used in Bombay Boys and various other movies, but its all good until you use the dreaded F word - oooh look its english, its the f word, its SO un-Indian and against our culture and sensibilities.
Someone also mentioned in their review that there was one song that was unimaginable ? the dead guy getting up to sing and dance. Umm yeah ? it was UNIMAGINABLE because the models were high, they?d smoked up, and were hallucinating. Which is a pretty brilliant explanation for putting in a random song as opposed to no explanation offered by mainstream directors for how their heroes go from streets of Bombay to Switzerland and New York, with 5 costume changes in a 5 minute song? Right, that?s all real logical, I suppose?
Boom is a random, offbeat, wacky movie. It?s a different genre ? its not your regular song and dance melodramatic hindi movie. If you?re a fan of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham kinda movies, with values, culture, family etc, then you should?ve never gone to watch Boom. If you?re into Guy Ritchie kinda movies where its all chaos and more often than not, you are wondering what?s going on and it all leads upto a cool ending, then watch Boom and appreciate the fact that an Indian director is trying to experiment.
Appreciate that the biggies in Bollywood are encouraging his experimentation by acting in it. People are taking risks, and eventually they?ll end up producing some truly classy, flawless work, but if they get bashed so bad each time they TRY, all we?ll ever get out Bollywood is crap like K3G and Mohabattein. So kudos to the director for trying, and to all those who watched the movie trailers with all the nudity and craziness and expected veiled women in the actual movie and are now complaining about swearing and skimpy clothes, really, get over it.