Jeet
Johar combines the worst of the old traditional ways and jaded modern
sensibilities. He still lives with his parents, but he is not shy about
unambiguously calling out his rivals in television interviews. Most women would
avoid long-term entanglements with him, but Canadian Katya Drobot was never
accused of being a deep thinker. Regardless, she will be the least of his
problems in Deepa Mehta’s Beeba Boys (trailer here), which releases
today on DVD in Canada.
The
Beeba Boys are good like fellas and pretty like that Boy Floyd. They are Vancouver’s
nattiest South Asian gang and their leader Johar has become a role model to
innumerable bullied Sikh youngsters. He has plenty of enemies, but old school “local
businessman” Robbie Greywal is the most dangerous.
Unbeknownst
to Johar, Greywal has placed a traitor in his midst. However, as Nep befriends
his fellow Beeba Boys as well as Johar’s grade school son, he starts to have
ninth and tenth thoughts about his loyalties. Fortunately, Greywal had the
foresight to let his attractive daughter Choti handle their undercover mole. It
is pretty clear Nep is interested in her. He and “Manny the Joker” also
befriend Johar lonely new wife, Drobot, but that is a pretty platonic
relationship. Emotionally, Drobot might be in a state of arrested development,
but she is not suicidal. Of course, there is no need for anyone in Johar’s
orbit to kill themselves. There will be plenty of gangsters and hitman out to
do the job for them.
Who
knew Deepa Mehta had such a slickly violent gangster beatdown in her? Granted,
none of the elements here are jaw-droppingly new, aside from its Sikh cultural
identity, but she marshals them with the spiffy style of a Michael Mann film.
Even if the broad strokes of their carouse-and-fall story are familiar, she
puts everyone through their paces and makes sure they always look good.
Without
question, Mehta’s ace card is Indian movie star Randeep Hooda, whom you might
recall from Sunny Leone’s Bollywood debut (hmm, what was that called again?).
As Johar, he snarls quite charismatically. His Cheshire Cat smile and
so-deep-it-is-almost-demonic voice are enormously gangster-cinema-friendly. Frankly,
a good two-thirds of the Beeba Boys are basically incredibly well-dressed
extras, but jewelry designer and Wes Anderson repertory player Waris Ahluwalia makes
the most of his Tarantino-esque dialogue as Manny.
