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BAROOD ("Dynamite") (1998)
Produced and Directed by: Pramod Chakravorty Music: Anand-Milind Starring: Raakhee Gulzar, Akshay Kumar, Raveena Tandon, Mohnish Behl, Aruna Irani, Gulshan Grover, Mohan Joshi, Amrish Puri Running Time: 158 Minutes
CineRating: 5 out of 10
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Before graduating into prestigious all-star event movies like Andaaz [2003] and Khakhee [2004], tall and gruff-voiced Akshay Kumar paid his dues in a string of cheesy action films that seemed hellbent on turning him into the Bollywood version of Jackie Chan and James Bond rolled into one. Nowhere is that more evident than in the insanely derivative Barood -- quite possibly Kumar's cheesiest and most entertaining 90's action knockoff.
For the first hour, Barood is an entirely inconsequential romantic comedy/thriller in which Kumar's "Jai" crosses paths with a spoiled rich girl named Neha (Raveena Tandon). When Neha fails to show up on time for an outdoor concert appearance, Jai takes the opportunity to leap from a helicopter into her place, where he puts on a dazzling dance number for the appreciative audience. Neha is none too pleased to be upstaged by this cocky newcomer, and she soon plots his demise with the help of her fiance Sanjay, son of the Police Commissioner.
Jai, however, is simply too cool to fall for Neha's murderous shenanigans, and he eventually begins to warm her heart after he rescues her from being blown up during a snowmobile ride through a bombing site (don't ask). Neha's father Singhal (Amrish Puri), is enraged at the thought of his daughter pledging her love to a "hood" rather than the son of his corrupt accomplice. He decides to confront Jai's mother Gayatri (Raakhee Gulzar), not realizing that she has been seeking bloody vengeance against him for years after he murdered her officer husband and slipped away unseen by all but her.
At this point, Barood soars into that ultra-melodramatic stratosphere that only Bollywood can safely navigate as Gayatri reluctantly decides to put aside her secret quest for revenge in order that Jai can be happily married to Neha. Of course, this doesn't sit well with Singhal, who goes so far as to blow up a dummy replica of Jai as a warning to Gayatri of what will happen to her son if she allows him to wed Neha.
Director Pramod Chakravorty (who gave Kumar his big break in Deedar [1992]) underscores almost every single dramatic confrontation in the film's latter half with a sudden barrage of thunder and lightning. But the film's best special effect by far is the reliably sinister Amrish Puri -- even more frighteningly bug-eyed here than usual (which is saying a lot), and looking quite a bit like one of those unmasked aliens from John Carpenter's They Live. Akshay Kumar -- a onetime martial arts instructor -- is a physically impressive but wooden hero, while the spritely Raveena Tandon makes for tasty eye candy. Gulshan Grover plays a rare second fiddle in the villainy department, though he still manages to hit a few grace notes of memorably eccentric scenery chewing. The perpetually annoying Johnny Lever pops up in a non-irritating cameo where he actually pulls off a halfway decent impression of M.C. Hammer and Michael Jackson.
There's little denying that Barood is sloppily scripted (assuming there was any script at all), haphazardly edited, and egregiously over-the-top in too many ways to mention, but it also has its share of surprises, not the least being an onscreen lip-to-lip lockup between Kumar and Tandon. The action scenes resemble outtakes from a low budget Hong Kong movie, but it's the thought that counts, and it's hard not to crack a smile when the filmmakers try to replicate Jackie Chan's parking structure brawl from Police Story or blatantly rip off a scene from Rumble in the Bronx. One choice bit of dialogue has our hero proclaiming (in his best Bond-style english): "I have the license to kill."
But it's the last thirty minutes of Barood that transform this ludicrous but mildly diverting action flick into a genuine guilty pleasure. It starts with the film's best song-and-dance number, "Mach Gaya Shor," a trippy showstopper that features dancers dressed up in tacky scorpion costumes. From there we quickly move to the climax, where Jai is forced to square off against a series of ethnically-diverse, musclebound henchman whose ranks include two Oriental martial artists saddled with horrendously dubbed english voices. The film's jawdroppingly absurd centerpiece is a poorman's replication of the classic finale to Jackie Chan's Drunken Master II. Kumar even copies Chan's fall into a bed of flaming coals -- minus the coals, of course, but, like I said, it's the thought that counts. Barood is laughably shameless in its wholesale theft, but, hell, at least it has the good sense to steal from the best.
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The Eros DVD is of variable (primarily average) quality and presented at an incorrect 1.85:1 ratio with tinny, distorted audio. The English subtitles are surprisingly well translated, for the most part.
DVD Specs:
Eros DVD
All Regions
Removable English Subs (None for the songs)
Trailers for Khauff, Le Chal Apne Sang, Gang, Hum To Mohabbat Karega, Karobaar, Beti No. 1
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