B-O-O-M. Review on Boom

The word is out and Boom has been busted. Surprising that our so-called critics who keep saying that “different” should be the approach to Hindi cinema still look for cliches and norms when they are watching a truly different film.

Boom as I would describe it falls in the Kaizad Gustad genre of film-making – although he is just two films old. And probably I am the only one to have liked the film as well.

Boom is one of the whackiest films I have seen in recent times. And thankfully it does not falls in any of the traps of conventional Hindi cinema.

There are no cliched heroes or heroines in the films. They are all characters. And distinctive at that. Be it Amitabh Bachchan or Jackie Shroff or Gulshan Grover – who over the years have done so many roles that it is a little difficult to imagine them as characters. They usually carry a lot of star baggage or “bad man” image for that matter. But in this film – of course with the help of designer Anna Singh – they look like characters.

Amitabh Bachchan plays Bade Miyan the big gangster and Gulshan is the medium miya who hates the thought of being someone’s underhand. While these two are in Dubai their Mumbai operations are carried out by chhote miya played by Jackie Shroff and his right-hand man is Boom Shankar – Javed Jaffrey.

The plot of the film is a nexus between the underworld and the fashion world. And the representatives of the fashion world are three glamourous models – Madhu Sapre, Padma Lakshmi and Katrina Kaif. Madhu gets into a cat fight on the ramp with another model and in the process of pulling her hair off – literally pulls out the diamonds she was to be smuggling to Dubai.

The diamonds or papds as referred to in the film are stolen and Chhote miya has to get them back. He puts Boom Shankar to task.

Three plans are devised to get back either the diamonds or the money to the big bosses sitting in Dubai. Plan A and plan B fail and of course the last resort is to send the girls to please the miyas.

Meanwhile each character is shown to be insecure within his own self and jealous of the other. Bachchan keeps a close tab on Gulshan and Gulshan on the other hand monitors his conversation with Jackie.

Jackie has a soft spot for Madhu while the other two models are put in charge of influencing the other two gangsters. What happens next is for one to watch the film and find out.

Zeenat Aman makes a comeback of sorts to commercial cinema as Bachchan’s highly efficient secretary who also secretly wishes to take over his empire. And then there is Seema Biswas on the other side to balance the equation. She plays maid to the girls but is a smart cookie herself.

Boom explores the Ravan in all characters in the film. There is a negative side in all of us and in dire situations it does take over.

The film has candid performances by all actors and like said earlier they come across as individual characters devoid of any star image. The cinematography is technically savvy. Although the background score could have been a little better – considering the man behind it is the very talented Sandeep Chowta.

If Boom were to be a Hollywood film, I am sure it would have been a cult film for many. But seeing Hindi actors mouth bad words and be brutal is just going to take a little more time. There is also a lot of talk about the girls showing skin. But hey it is just the way our Indian fashion scene is. So why not depict the same in films? It is ridiculous to have models wear next-to-nothing on the ramp but when you make a film on them show them clad in sarees.

To enjoy Boom one needs an open mind and probably a creative mind at that too.