09-23-2014, 12:08 PM
I have fallen down the Bollywood rabbit hole. I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Boss is an Akshay Kumar vehicle. Akki is a major proponent of martial arts in real life and I missed the chance to interview him a few years ago because I couldn't get him on the cover (G2 has no idea what Bollywood is and to be honest, I'm not sure that he would have worked on our cover anyway). Akki is best known in martial circles (and here) for Chandni Chowk to China (<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1494">viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1494</a><!-- l -->). An Akki flick is an odd beast. It's full of that self-deprecating almost mouletai style of humor as Akki has no problem playing the fool for a pratfall. Then it is also full of that sappy sentimentality, typically familial or true love, like any Bollywood - here it is about profound bond between father and son. Akki has surprising emotional range and can handle that too. And then there's the action. Akki is built like a gorilla with pecs as big as my qi belly and abs stacked like cinder blocks to support them. He can throw a good solid punch, kick, and even a combo, and can do wirework and acrobatics for a decent fight. Something happened in Bollywood in recent years - the fight scenes got a lot better. They are still heavily absorbed in ubiquitous slo mo, but they are punctuated with big bass booms, almost like an EDM drop of the bass, with each overdone slo mo impact, and they are only moderately silly (a good punch can send someone flying in the air in a slow mo barrel roll with balletic grace).
Boss is Akki as a do-gooder crime boss, rejected by his father for a very complicated misunderstanding which I won't spoil for CF. He is hired to kill his brother. Akki's over-the-top 'Boss is always right' portrayal is humorous - his henchman assemble on command to form a human rocking chair throne, he wears four rings that spell out 'BOSS' and when he hits someone in the face, they make an impression on his cheek (oddly not mirror imaged but we won't dwell on that because it's Bollywood). Akki tries his hand a parkour here, and it's not bad - not Jackie-Chan-graceful but a cramped Indian neighborhood and market is a great parkour environment. He also delivers a nice fight scene where he is offing would-be assassins (goons) discreetly as he is walking with his dad, hiding the violence from him. The downside is that the dance numbers are mediocre and there isn't enough screen time for the main hottie (Aditi Rao Hydari, who isn't that charismatic anyway). The upside is Ronit Roy, the villainous bad cop, who is spot on with his merciless portrayal. There's a hip hop bent as it features a cameo by Yo Yo (an Indian rapper). Bollywood works cameos, most of which is lost on me because truth be told, I don't know the genre that well. For example, in Boss, there's an random cameo by Sonakshi Sinha during a dance number. At the end of the scene, she asks Akki when she will see him again and he says 'at the end of the movie'. Sure enough, she's in the final dance number run during the closing credits.
Boss is an Akshay Kumar vehicle. Akki is a major proponent of martial arts in real life and I missed the chance to interview him a few years ago because I couldn't get him on the cover (G2 has no idea what Bollywood is and to be honest, I'm not sure that he would have worked on our cover anyway). Akki is best known in martial circles (and here) for Chandni Chowk to China (<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1494">viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1494</a><!-- l -->). An Akki flick is an odd beast. It's full of that self-deprecating almost mouletai style of humor as Akki has no problem playing the fool for a pratfall. Then it is also full of that sappy sentimentality, typically familial or true love, like any Bollywood - here it is about profound bond between father and son. Akki has surprising emotional range and can handle that too. And then there's the action. Akki is built like a gorilla with pecs as big as my qi belly and abs stacked like cinder blocks to support them. He can throw a good solid punch, kick, and even a combo, and can do wirework and acrobatics for a decent fight. Something happened in Bollywood in recent years - the fight scenes got a lot better. They are still heavily absorbed in ubiquitous slo mo, but they are punctuated with big bass booms, almost like an EDM drop of the bass, with each overdone slo mo impact, and they are only moderately silly (a good punch can send someone flying in the air in a slow mo barrel roll with balletic grace).
Boss is Akki as a do-gooder crime boss, rejected by his father for a very complicated misunderstanding which I won't spoil for CF. He is hired to kill his brother. Akki's over-the-top 'Boss is always right' portrayal is humorous - his henchman assemble on command to form a human rocking chair throne, he wears four rings that spell out 'BOSS' and when he hits someone in the face, they make an impression on his cheek (oddly not mirror imaged but we won't dwell on that because it's Bollywood). Akki tries his hand a parkour here, and it's not bad - not Jackie-Chan-graceful but a cramped Indian neighborhood and market is a great parkour environment. He also delivers a nice fight scene where he is offing would-be assassins (goons) discreetly as he is walking with his dad, hiding the violence from him. The downside is that the dance numbers are mediocre and there isn't enough screen time for the main hottie (Aditi Rao Hydari, who isn't that charismatic anyway). The upside is Ronit Roy, the villainous bad cop, who is spot on with his merciless portrayal. There's a hip hop bent as it features a cameo by Yo Yo (an Indian rapper). Bollywood works cameos, most of which is lost on me because truth be told, I don't know the genre that well. For example, in Boss, there's an random cameo by Sonakshi Sinha during a dance number. At the end of the scene, she asks Akki when she will see him again and he says 'at the end of the movie'. Sure enough, she's in the final dance number run during the closing credits.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse