Boss

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 16th October, 2013
Time : 144 minutes
Director : Anthony D’Souza; Writer: Farhad-Sajid; Music : Various
Starring : Akshay Kumar, Ronit Roy, Shiv Pundit, Aditi Rao Hydari, Mithun Chakraborty, Danny Dengzopa, Parikshit Sinha, Govind Namdeo, Aakash Dhabade, Johnny Lever



This film is to subtlety what Yo Yo Honey Singh is to melody…the best thing you can say about it is that it isn’t as bad as some of the recent crap that has graced our screens…but then that isn’t saying a lot, is it ?

A scrawny teenager, chucked out by his holier than thou, school-teacher father (Mithun) saves the life of a principled Don type guy (Danny) and becomes his heir and protégé. Danny is known as Big Boss so Akshay’s title is the snappier short form. The makers, not being the shy sort, remind us of this every now and then – Boss has a personalized squad of cheerleaders, a few toughies who never fight but either scream ‘Boss’ or ‘Jai Mata Di’ and become a rocking chair on demand, personalized number plates and also rings which obviously remind him who he is…

In other developments, a tough but corrupt cop, Ronit (easily the best thing about the film), is marrying off his unwilling sister (Aditi) to prize champu (well played by Aakash Dhabade) who is the Home Minister’s (Gobind Namdeo) son but when she, as in all Hindi films, falls instant ‘Louuww’ with Shiv (happens to be Akshay’s estranged brother), Ronit is not very happy and the battle lines get very quickly drawn, with most of the film from then on consisting of various parties threatening each other of all sorts of dire consequences without doing anything of too much consequence…

Legality, time and space continuum, logic are just some of the casualties of the plot. A Delhi cop will peacefully land up in Kurukshetra to nab a criminal and then base himself there. Mithun will land up from whatever village he lives in to Delhi as soon as Ronit has locked his son up, without any prior notice (a good blow for all those who harp on mother’s intuition - see, Dad’s have it too !) and then, in the laughably, slow-motion riddled, long-drawn out climax), someone arrives from the ICU, casually strolling to a god–forsaken location, just to do huggy-wuggy (so sweet !)…

There is a sequence with a punching bag that is funny. Another involving a fake fight with written dialogues (incl a mention of AR Rahman) that also raises a few laughs. But then you have bawdy jokes like a truck named ‘Behen Ki Lauri’, some ribald Johnny Lever ones and numerous item and non-item songs plus unnecessary senti moments to slow down the pace of the film and make you groan with as much pain as those bashed up by Ronit or Akshay.

There is nothing here that you’ve not seen before…the same slow-motion, cable aided stunts, bodies bruised, cracked and flung around by heroes who look scarcely capable of doing so…when someone calls it paisa vasool entertainer, I really wonder kiska paisa, aur kaun vasool kar raha hai !?