If outfits could kill, Jeet Johar and his gang would be the kings of the underworld. They care more about their shoes, color-coordinated turbans and sharp ankle-length pants than about the law or human life. They are the Beeba Boys of Canadian director Deepa Mehta's latest film of the same name, which had its world premiere on September 13 at the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF.
Introducing the film at the festival, Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, told the audience that Beeba Boys is a rare Canadian gangster film. This may not be the distinction the million-strong Indo-Canadian community would covet, but Mehta's film is a fictional account inspired by the reality of Indian - mainly Punjabi Sikh - gangs in the Vancouver area.
Indian actor Randeep Hooda is the gang leader Jeet Johar, surrounded by several sidekicks, the most memorable of whom is the court jester Manny, played by New York-based actor and designer Waris Ahluwalia. Canadian actor Ali Momen is Nep, who plays a dangerous double game with Jeet and his rival, an older gangster Robbie Grewal, played by Gulshan Grover. The film gets its name from the Punjabi word for good, beeba, which was how many Punjabi mothers described their sons to Mehta.
The first thing you notice about the Beeba Boys is their wardrobe. Mehta, who also wrote the screenplay, said in an interview that she didn't set out to glamourise the gangsters, but that it was also impossible to divorce crime from glamour. "I think anybody who says that crime is not glamorous is very naïve. Crime has always been glamorous, whether it's Italian gangsters or Irish gangsters or the Yakuza or the Triads, wherever power and money are focused on macho male behaviour - sadly, and I'm not saying this is a good thing, it becomes very glamorous. So I had no concerns, I'm just depicting reality,"she says.
Introducing the film at the festival, Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, told the audience that Beeba Boys is a rare Canadian gangster film. This may not be the distinction the million-strong Indo-Canadian community would covet, but Mehta's film is a fictional account inspired by the reality of Indian - mainly Punjabi Sikh - gangs in the Vancouver area.
Indian actor Randeep Hooda is the gang leader Jeet Johar, surrounded by several sidekicks, the most memorable of whom is the court jester Manny, played by New York-based actor and designer Waris Ahluwalia. Canadian actor Ali Momen is Nep, who plays a dangerous double game with Jeet and his rival, an older gangster Robbie Grewal, played by Gulshan Grover. The film gets its name from the Punjabi word for good, beeba, which was how many Punjabi mothers described their sons to Mehta.
The first thing you notice about the Beeba Boys is their wardrobe. Mehta, who also wrote the screenplay, said in an interview that she didn't set out to glamourise the gangsters, but that it was also impossible to divorce crime from glamour. "I think anybody who says that crime is not glamorous is very naïve. Crime has always been glamorous, whether it's Italian gangsters or Irish gangsters or the Yakuza or the Triads, wherever power and money are focused on macho male behaviour - sadly, and I'm not saying this is a good thing, it becomes very glamorous. So I had no concerns, I'm just depicting reality,"she says.
While the older don Grewal prefers to keep a low profile, describing his underworld operations as pure business, Jeet aspires to be seen, heard and feared. It's almost as if being recognised as a gangster is more important than actually being one. He gives television interviews about his take on how to win respect from rivals and racists, sometimes both, in a language that would amount to nothing more than a series of bleeps during telecast. But despite his swagger and big talk, Jeet finds that dislodging Grewal is going to be harder than it looks.
With a stylish gang and their fancy toys and turf wars, the film veers between fierce and farce; despite the shocking body count, there is little sense of real menace, as with the scene in The Godfather when a Hollywood producer finds the head of his favourite stallion in his blood-soaked bed. The Beeba Boys often look like they are playing at being gangsters, and their casual violence, part of that play-acting.
Deepa Mehta
The director zeroed in on Hooda for the lead role after having watched him in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai. "He has a very short role, but I didn't remember anything about the film except him," Mehta says. Hooda, essaying another gangster role, is the bright spot in the film, effortlessly switching between the roles of a steely boss, debonair lover, devoted single dad and resigned to kowtowing to his mother who doesn't hesitate to squash his swagger in front of his goons while demanding he hand over his dirty underwear for washing. You may quibble with the mother's decision to admonish, but also ignore, her son's criminal activity, but Balinder Johal brings a delightful insouciance to her role.
Mehta, who met with two gangsters and two mothers while writing the film, says the mothers often are unable to dissuade their sons from joining gangs. "They aren't deliberately trying to ignore it. They just can't do much about it," Mehta says. Ahluwalia looks his part, even if the device of his deliberately poor jokes sometimes falls flat, while Canadian actor Sarah Allen plays a juror who falls so deeply for Jeet during a trial where he's acquitted, she seems out of her depth as an Indian gangster's moll.
With a mixture of violence and humour, the film builds up to the final confrontation. While there was a lot of buzz about a director known for her dramas doing a gangster film, Mehta said she never really felt she was in unfamiliar territory. "I thought I was doing a dramatic film, and I still feel I did a dramatic film, that the story is a dramatic story about the rise and fall of a brotherhood of gangsters."
The film is scheduled to hit theaters in Canada on October 16, but Mehta said she was indifferent to its release in India. ""I absolutely make no money in India, everything gets pirated, I get into people writing strange things about it, it makes no difference to me," she says.
