'Boom' is a bust

A don hits upon an idea -- smuggle 'antique' diamonds (which I presume are more valuable than the regular version) out of the country hidden in a supermodel's hairdo.

So they place the diamonds in said supermodel's hair just before she takes to the catwalk for a fashion show.

It does not, of course, occur to the masterminds that a better time to do that would be before she is actually due to board whatever flight it is -- that would be too sensible, na?

And so the supermodel walks the ramp with several karod worth of stones in her hair; gets into a bit of a thing with a rival, gets tripped, and lo, the diamonds go cascading all over the catwalk, and are promptly snatched up by photographers and others in the ringside seats.

This being a very high-profile event, the organisers have no security whatsoever -- or they could have simply shut the gates; and announced that if all the diamonds were not returned, everyone would be subjected to a search on the way out the door.

But such a simple means of recovery would, of course, be too simple (it would also mean that the film would be over inside the first 15 minutes).

So the diamonds are lost -- and a bunch of villains as played (read, caricatured) by Jackie Shroff, Jaaved Jaaferi, Gulshan Grover and Amitabh Bachchan -- try to recover them.

Plans include holding another fashion show, on the premise that the same people will land up and the diamonds can then be recovered from them (Duh! Having got my hands on a bootleg diamond or three, I am of course going to be dumb enough to bring them with me to the next show I go for); using the three supermodels to rob a bank (by the simple expedient of having them dress up in skimpy clothes and hide their identities by wearing masks of their own faces!); and so on and yawn, up until the three-way shootout reminiscent of Kaante's finale, which in turn was reminiscent of half-a-dozen other movies...

When reviewing a film, you tend to look, first, for larger stories; parallels you can draw between the film under review and others of earlier vintage. You can't do that with Boom; the only parallels you can draw are with the soft-porn offerings on the Adult on Demand channel.

If a film does not provide grist for the thoughtful mill, you fall back on the standard template -- synopsize the story, examine the screenplay, touch on the actors and their performances, look at the music and cinematography...

You can't do that with Boom -- because there is no discernible story; the screenplay appears to be something cobbled together on the sets even as the shooting went on.

The performances -- by the likes of Jackie, Amitabh, Jaaved Jafferi and Gulshan Grover -- are the sort that would do discredit to amateur actors, let alone seasoned professionals.

The music is so obtrusive at times that you don't hear the dialogues (which, all things considered, is not actually a bad thing); and the camera angles (check out the early shot, for instance, of Shroff reclining in what looks like a gigantic oyster shell with Jafferi sitting before him) are sophomoric (and that is an insult to sophomores).

So then what do you do?

AMONG the many good movies made about making movies is Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (La Nuit Americaine, Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, 1973).

In one sequence, Truffaut, who plays the director, explains how things can go awry between the grand concept of the film in the director's mind, and its actual execution on screen.

So what was the 'grand concept' in the mind of scriptwriter-director Kaizad Gustad?

Was it a campy look at the nexus between the glam world and the underworld -- the cream and scum, as it were, of society?

Was it a cat-and-mouse caper, with three supermodels (by popular definition, bimbos) pitting their minds against a bunch of bad guys?

The film is neither.

It only works at one level --  an opportunity for Gustad to spend seemingly unlimited amounts of money to live out a juvenile fantasy of underworld dadas with girls perennially stashed under their desks, ready to provide oral sex throughout the day; and models who lounge around the house in their underwear, and wear even less when they leave the house.

And that brings me, finally, to the girls. Katrina Kaif and Padma Lakshmi are hot; Madhu Sapre is merely tired and old. Seema Biswas -- as the servant maid turned master-plotter -- is unbelievable; the once elegant Zeenat Aman as Amitabh's secretary will, if she looks back over her oeuvre, regret that parody of a table dance she does to the strains of Dum Maro Dum.

And finally, after all that hype over Bo Derek's presence (the hypemeisters spoke of her as the surprise package; Zeenat in interviews even talked of a kiss shared by Derek and Amitabh), what you see is her in a fleeting appearance reprising, in Indian attire, that famous 'rising from the sea' scene from 10; Amitabh and Derek do not even share the same frame.

Why bring this minor detail up? Merely to emphasize that hype, 'hooks' (Zeenat returns; three supermodels appear as themselves; Bo Derek) and such can enhance the appeal of a good story; they cannot, however, cover for the fact that there is no story.

Would love to hear from those of you who saw this film; meanwhile, will get to pending mails and other matters tomorrow.

Take care all.