Bombay Boys (1998)

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A New Yorker, an Australian, and an Englishman return to their birthplace, Bombay India, in hopes of finding their identities and reorganizing their lives. All three arrive at the same time and end up sharing the same flat. Krishna, the American, has come back in hopes of launching a successful… More A New Yorker, an Australian, and an Englishman return to their birthplace, Bombay India, in hopes of finding their identities and reorganizing their lives. All three arrive at the same time and end up sharing the same flat. Krishna, the American, has come back in hopes of launching a successful acting career in movies. He gets his big break when local gangster-turned-producer Matsana hires Krishna to appear in a musical extravaganza. Kris has no idea that Matsana desperately wants the movie to flop so he can reap big profits. The Englishman Xerxes is a flautist wrestling with his sexual identity. He knows that he is gay but is having trouble deciding whether or not to be open about it. The lonely apartment owner Persi is definitely homosexual and finds himself attracted to Xerxes. The third roommate, former Sydney resident Fernandes, has come to Bombay to search for his estranged brother. A complex mixture of slapstick, violence and sentiment coupled with a spoof on Indian masala movies, the film follows the three disparate protagonists as lives collide and split apart in increasingly chaotic ways. The first feature of NYU Film School-trained Kaizad Gustad, the film casts an eye upon the Bollywood (Bombay-based Indian Hollywood) film industry via an "A"-rate gangster and a "B"-Grade producer. The whole point is to show that India is not what it is supposed to be. Mobile phones have replaced Mantras, and Coca-Cola has taken over Karma. Bombay Boys has received attention in Toronto, Vancouver and London Film Festivals, but its real success is bound to be in the circuit it parodies, namely the commercial Bollywood cinema. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi