Boom

I had very high expectations when i went to see this movie. However i was utterly dissapointed. The movie is a no-go straight from frame 1. You always think that the film will pick-up, but it never happens. I had expected something fresh and different and a gripping story line, and ofcourse a few laughs...but believe me i never laughed once in the film. One of the major things i was dissapointed with was Amitabh's characterisation. He was really wasted.... i think he only ahd 4 to 5 scenes in the film....i dont know why he did this movie. All the models in the film dont know how to act....and the rest of the cast are ok. I think Javed Jaffry is the one who shows out. He was above average. Overall a very very bad movie....After Bombay Boys, Kaizad Gustad has made a very bad mistake making this big huge flop.... try harder next time....please!

I had earlier seen Bombay boys by Kaizad Gustad, hence this prompted me to rent out the video for Boom. The name itself is pretty unusual for a bollywood movie and the cast is the best that bollywood has to offer. Jackie as "Medium" again shows Jackie's potential as a versatile actor and Javed Jaffery as "Boom Shankar" is his usual eccentric self. No wonder Kaizad decided to name the movie over his character, Javed Jaffery lends the comical edge to the otherwise dark-sided movie. 3 gangsters bade, chote and medium rule the fashion industry helped by boom shankar. In a world where everyone is being terrorised by the 3 brothers 3 models are forced to work for them. Taking advantage of their beauty and charms, supplemented by their utter distrust of each other and aided by Boom shanker - these 3 models fool everyone including Boom shankar himself. Madhu Sapre along with the Kaif lend the bitchish touch the models character, showing why beauty is skindeep. As expected this movie was treated like a shocker by the indian cinema houses, because by any bollywood standard this movie is ground breaking. For the simple reason that it does not follow the nuances of a commercial bollywood film and follows on Quinton Tarantino's path i vote this movie as a must see for every hindi film critic.

Gustad is a lucky director in that he got to do a big film after the mediocre Bombay Boys. For Boom he got the likes of Bachan, Shroff, Zeenat Amaan et al and had the deep pockets to shoot at Burj Al Arab and pretty much wherever he wanted in India and Dubai. He also had the names of Bo Derek and Padma Lakshmi (Salman Rushdie's model girlfriend) to play up in the marketing campaign... and what did he do with all this! He sank it all.

He has three cuties in the cast who are raring to bare it all, and did quite often; he got tremendous performances from the lower league actors, Gulshan Grover and specially Javed Jaffrey; there's the ever sellable cocktail of sex, drugs and money; and despite everything there ARE quite a few laughs in the film. So what went wrong?

The story. Or rather the lack of it. It seems Gustad was shooting on random notes rather than a script. The result is a series of shots - some beautiful, sexy and very funny, others irrelevant or incomprehensible, or both - put together in a jumpy fashion, and served up with a lot of glitter to make it look like a feature film. Sound levels are particularly bad, and some of the dialogue is lost either in strange accents the actors are putting on, or in the sound quality. Seems like the flick was only intended to be watched, not heard.

I watched the movie against many an advice, but I'd like to recommend it to all those who are interested in movies. Just to guage how so much can be squandered to produce so little, if for no other reason.

Boom was a great concept with a great soundtrack. The publicity was great and of course what a great title. The title track with Ila Arun/Talvin Singh saved some of the film.

It seemed that most of the film was shot in daylight, which already compromises the dramatic quality of the film. The director used master shots with wide lenses, which again compromises drama and character build up. It seemed that the script was so loose that nothing seemed to stick. There were no character arcs and the movie came to an abrupt end. Even if violence and flesh are the idea, there are ways to make it tantalizing and provide for tension. Moreover Kaizad's characters were not believable because he spent little time on each with very limited staging. If a character spends all his time in one room, or doing just one thing, we cannot be too interested in him. What we call 'Emotional Dynamics'.

The motivation was missing, why were the Dons after the models, when they didnt have the Diamonds? The limited locations and bright sunlight really dampened the quality of the film. The only dramatic light was with the Shroff character. The film had tremendous potential and a great concept in the making but I guess they were in hurry to get the film made.

I think Kaizad is a passionate filmmaker who has the guts to break new ground, but in doing that, it is not wise to try and break all the basic rules of story telling.

Make no mistakes, its a honest attempt to make avoid run-of-the-mill movie. But somewhere the chord fails to strike in the failed attempt of fashion-meets-underworld.

Kaizad manages to create layers in the movie, however there end up like jigsaw puzzle. And it seems Kaizad was a strict teacher when it comes to following-the-book owing to which its apparent that the actors are mouthing the script akin to animated characters which immediately springs up being artificial.

Big B: I felt his white-hair was a complete bad fashion statement.

Jaggu Dada:: The stoned dialogue delivery was a bad idea.

Gulshan Grover:: Leaves no impact, other than his fantasising of being Bade Miyan.

Javed Jaffery:: His dialogues seemed OTT at a few places otherwise very competent.

Seema Biswas & Zeenat Aman:: No complaints.

The three lasses - well, you are excused.

The grand finale.... well, it was kind of coming, so no suspense there.