Kya Behan Ki Lorry Picture Hai, Boss!

(This review was done for Flickbay and first appeared on http://www.flickbay.com/UserProfile/Biprorshee-Das/320/4)

I watched a movie today, a movie called How To Get Your Brother Out of Jail Without Any Trouble In 24 Hours While Grooving To Yo Yo Honey Singh Sitting On Human Furniture and Drinking Mangola. Ok, this is insider information. The movie was renamed Boss when the filmmakers thought the abbreviation ‘HTGYBOOJWATITFHWGTYYHSSOHFADM’ would be a mouthful. Jokes apart (I try), the only exaggeration in the ‘original’ title is the Mangola bit.

It all started some time ago when my then-girlfriend-now-wife refused to watch Rowdy Rathore with me. “Why would anybody watch an Akshay Kumar movie,” she asked. I protested meekly. “He isn’t that bad,” I said (Rowdy Rathore is a TERRIBLE movie, just for the record). I don’t quite mind Mr. Kumar. And no, I won’t refer to him as ‘Khiladi’ Kumar. I am embarrassed to do so and he must be too.

So, I don’t quite mind Mr. Kumar and when I was offered two tickets to the screening of Kumar’s latest masterpiece – Boss – I asked the wife if she wanted to join and she refused yet again. I ignored her warning and headed to the movies anyway.

I must admit, I had an opinion and not a very good one about Boss well before I even reached the theatre. Let’s see what the trailer told me –

a.      There’s Akshay Kumar with a terrible Haryanvi accent.

b.      There’s Akshay Kumar cracking God-awful jokes.

c.       There’s Akshay Kumar calling himself ‘Boss’.

d.      There’s Akshay Kumar delivering dialogues in his own voice.

e.       There’s Akshay Kumar telling me this looks exactly like a movie Prabhudeva would make (and that can’t be a good thing).

From the very beginning, every clichéd trick in the book is tried to make the audience go, “Oooohh aaahh”. From an introductory narration by a man celebrated for his voice, movies, daughter-in-law, brand endorsements, Juhu (let’s say, we call him Amitabh Bachchan) to star-cameos, South-Indian-styled (NO OFFENCE MEANT AT ALL) action and finally, even Shakti Kapoor, we have seen it all and Boss doesn’t surprise.

The storyline offers nothing new either but if you expected anything better, I’d give you a cookie. And if the plot is hackneyed, Boss is further marred by some absolutely inane, corny dialogues. Get a load of this – “Apne ko kya hai! Apne ko bas paani nikalna hai”, “Maut ko yu hi badnaam karte hai. Taqleef to zindagi deti hai”, “Gusse ko thook de. Apne dushmano ko phook de” and some more.

The comic relief comes in the form of very, very pathetic attempts at being funny – “The Boss is always right” when Boss is asked why he is standing to the right and not in front; the Boss loves to jog “on Jogging Trucks”; the clincher – Boss’s favourite truck gifted to him by his sister that he calls “Behan ki Lorry”. Did I give it all out? No, there are more to make you cringe. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT miss the ‘Rocking Chair’. Home furniture will never be the same again.

The scenes are linked together by a thread that threatens to snap any moment. The jumps are abrupt. Dialogues are often forced. Songs appear out of nowhere and make Hum Aapke Hai Kaun look so much tolerable even with that retarded dog.

The performances? Oh my God, the performances! Almost each and every actor will look back at this movie and ask ‘why’. If they don’t, they must. Be it Danny Denzongpa, Mithun Chakraborty, Shiv Pandit or even Akshay Kumar himself.

I was almost pleased to see Johnny Lever on screen again after a pretty long time till I saw how he was utterly wasted through the movie. Once again, there are the terribly written lines, 17^th century jokes to blame and there is a visibly old and tired Lever. Govind Namdeo hams so much, it breaks your heart. Aditi Rao Hydari is seen in a bikini and that is pretty much her most significant scene in the movie because she almost has no dialogues to deliver or no role to play.  Parikshit Sahni still can’t act. Perhaps his only glorious moment in Hindi cinema was asking the courtroom judge in Meri Jung, “Whaaaat is this, judgesaab?”.

The one positive for me though was Ronit Roy’s performance, which I thought was sincere. As the main antagonist ACP Aayushman Thakur, Roy oozes evil. Not the kind that would remind you of Atul Kulkarni from Dum, which I still think was a brilliant performance, but good enough.

Boss is yet another one of those movies that is riding a wave; a trend that scares you and leaves you wondering if all that was most terrible about the Hindi movies of the 80s is staging a comeback. And you only have Rohit Shetty to blame! I sincerely hope Sajid Khan has given up on making movies after Himmatwala.

After a couple of agonising hours, I left the theatre. Ah! Look, Ronit Roy. I was most tempted to go up to him and say, “Sir, I liked Bomb Blast better” and sing, “Lena hai, lena hai …” What? You haven’t seen Bomb Blast? Go, watch now!

Let me go tell my wife how she is always right! See what I did there?

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