Boss: Born to Rule

Boss: Born to Rule
Boss: Born to Rule
Soundtrack album by Jeet Gannguli
Released	13 July 2013
Recorded	2013
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Language	Bengali
Label	T-Series
Producer	Mahesh Ramanathan, Jeet
Jeet Gannguli chronology
Singles from Boss: Born to Rule
	"Boss (Title Track)"; Released: 15 Jun 2013; "Mon Majhi Re"; Released: 27 Jun 2013; "Jhinkunakur Na"; Released: 11 Jul 2013; "Eeche Joto"; Released: 19 Jul 2013;

Boss: Born to Rule
Boss: Born to Rule
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Baba Yadav
Screenplay by	N. K. Salil
Story by	Puri Jagannadh
Produced by	Reliance Entertainment; Grassroot Entertainment
Starring	Jeet; Subhashree Ganguly; Chiranjeet Chakraborty; Rajatava Dutta; Biswanath Basu; Biswajit Chakraborty
Cinematography	P. Selva Kumar
Edited by	MD. Kalam
Music by	Songs:; Jeet Gannguli; Background score:; Jeet Gannguli; S. P. Venkatesh
Production; companies	Reliance Entertainment; Grassroot Entertainment; Jalsha Movies Production
Distributed by	Reliance Entertainment; Grassroot Entertainment
Release date	9 August 2013;
Running time	140 minutes
Country	India
Language	Bengali

Boss: Born to Rule is a 2013 Indian Bengali-language action thriller film directed by Baba Yadav in his directorial debut.^[1] Produced by Reliance Entertainment in association with Jeet under the banner of Grassroot Entertainment and distributed by Jalsha Movies Production, it stars Jeet in the titular role, alongside Subhashree Ganguly, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Rajatava Dutta, Supriyo Dutta and Biswanath Basu in lead roles.^[2] It is a remake of the 2012 Telugu film Businessman.^[3]

Made on a budget of ₹67.5 million (US$810,000), the film was predominantly shot in Kolkata, Mumbai and Goa; with some foreign locations including Bangkok, Italy and Turkey.^[4] The soudtrack of the film is composed by Jeet Gannguli, with lyrics penned by Chandrani Gannguli, Prosen and Meghnad, while S. P. Venkatesh provides its score. The film had cinematography handled by P. Selva Kumar, editing by MD Kalam, action sequences designed by Rocky Rajesh and dance choreographed by Yadav himself.^[5]

Boss was theatrically released on 9 August 2013, coinciding with Eid. Upon release, it received positive reviews from both the critics and audiences who praised the performance by Jeet, script and dialogues by Salil, songs by Gannguli and the action sequences. It was declared a blockbuster at the box-office and ran for over more than 250 days in theatres. It was one of the highest grossing Bengali films of 2013.

The signature dialogue of Jeet in the film, "Be the King of your own Kingdom" became very famous amongst the masses and the songs composed by Gannguli were chartbusters upon its release, specifically "Made in Kolkata" sung by Gannguli himself and "Mon Majhi Re" sung by Arijit Singh. A sequel titled, Boss 2: Back To Rule was released on 23 June 2017.

Plot

At a time when Mumbai Police headed by Police Commissioner Binayak Roy announce that the much dreaded Mafia Raj is completely wiped out in the city and there are no more crime lords in Mumbai, a rookie named Surya lands in the country's commercial capital with an intention to become a Mafia Don. His friend Shibu receives him and brings him to Dharavi. He offers him shelter and tells him that he would soon fetch him a job so that he can settle down in life. But Surya wants to carve an identity for himself, by reorganizing Mumbai's Mafia Raj and eventually rule Mumbai. He then mocks as a cop and gets his first bounty, and then he forms a gang of his own. Surya meets up with a MLA Gopinath Shivalkar alias "Gopi Sahib", who is in trouble and offers him help. Surya begins recruiting criminals and gangsters in Mumbai and starts to extort people for money. Surya further helps the Dharavi locals to clear their debts by making his henchmen rob the original copies of the loan documents in the local branch of Bank of Maharashtra and destroy the bank records. While the locals hail him as their saviour, Surya slowly gains momentum and gets feared for extortion.

Meanwhile, Surya also knowingly tries to get romantically involved with a model named Rusha, Police Commissioner Binayak's daughter, in order to safeguard himself from Binayak. In the process, he actually falls for the girl and tries for her acceptance. One day, Surya learns that Central Minister Rajshekhar Sinha, who aspires to be the next PM, has sent some assassins to kill him. Surya tricks the men into believing that he is a guide sent to help them where he plants bombs in their food that explodes, resulting in a shootout. While escaping, Surya sees Rusha, who has now learned of his true nature. When arrested, Surya accepts that he trapped her, but now he truly loves her. In the mean time, Surya gets surrounded by police and Binayak arrests him. However, Binayak is forced to free Surya after his henchmen kidnap Rusha. Surya promises to give up crime in order to live with Rusha, but he decides to set up a business which is untouchable by the police, after his proposal is turned down.

In the course of the film, Surya's friendship with Gopi gets stronger, and so does his political connections. Surya sets up a company named Surya Exports & Imports, as a front for his vigilante acts. Surya reveals his plan to grow his network of organized crime all over India. In order to set up branch offices all over the country, Surya recruits local gangsters for staff and begins to forcibly extract a 2% tax on every contract made in the respective areas. Eventually, he becomes a billionaire, and during the inauguration of his Business Bank, reveals his thirst for power, but not money, to Binayak, further citing the decline in crime rate significantly after recruiting the gangsters, and expressing his desire to help the needy. He also claims that he believes in war but not morality stating that he wants to rid India of crime.

Eventually, Surya also helps Gopi to become the Mayor of Mumbai by defeating Arun Gokhle, who is backed up by Rajshekhar. Foremostly, Arun Ghokle goes against Rajshekhar and talks to the police about Rajshekhar's illegal activities and scams. Thereafter he gets endorsed and later killed by Rajshekhar, under the police custody. Learning that Rajshekhar is planning to get both Binayak and Rusha killed, Surya rushes to their house but fails to save Binayak, who tells him to kill Rajshekhar in his final moments. Surya then reveals to Rusha that he was an American-born Indian whose philanthropist parents were cheated and killed by Rajshekhar. As a child, Surya tried to enlist the help of the police but finding none, and he ended up stabbing and shooting Jaidev publicly. The violent murder of his parents, who were the victims of political corruption, haunted him and the attitude of people towards an orphan while growing up made him hate the society.

In his pursuit of power and achieving his goal of getting India rid of the crime, he shifts his attention towards the upcoming Indian parliament elections. Surya meets Ravikanth Sahay, the head of the opposition party through Gopi, and offers him 350 billion (US$5.5 billion) for election campaigning along with the promise to make him the next PM of India. Surya spends crores of rupees per constituency in the nation and also reveals Rajshekhar's illegal affairs, making him unable to contest in the elections.

A disoriented Rajshekhar kidnaps Rusha and Surya arrives to rescue her. In anger towards Surya, Rajshekhar reveals that he has been disqualified from the election in spite of having a lot of power and gaining public sympathy, due to Surya's tactics. However, Surya gets into a fight with Jaidev's henchmen and leaves them all dead, except one who holds Rusha at knifepoint. Rajshekhar agrees to free Rusha instead of Surya's death. Surya shoots himself before shooting both Rajshekhar and the henchman to death. Rusha accepts her love for Surya, and Binayak, who has come round, agrees with them. Besides, Surya also succeeds installing both Gopi as the CM of Mumbai and Ravikant as the PM of India.

While recovering in the hospital, Surya delivers a message to the public, citing that there is no importance of a life that have no target; and also forbidding to leave a single place of one to anyone. The film ends with Surya's motivational dialogue, "Be the King of your own Kingdom."

Cast

Jeet as Surya ^[6]
Subhashree Ganguly as Rusha Roy
Chiranjeet as Police Commissioner Vinayak Roy, who wants to remove the underworld syndicate from Mumbai
Rajatava Dutta as Rajsekhar Sinha, who tends to be the Prime Minister of India
Supriyo Dutta as Chief Minister Gopinath Shivalkar
Biswajit Chakraborty as Mumbai Mayor Arun Gokhle
Biswanath Basu as Shibcharan Chowdhury^[7]
Sanju Mandal as Kaalia
Joy Badlani as Shailendra Singh
Bhashkar Dev as Inspector Bharath Patnaik
Somnath Kar as Shakib
Yusuf Chishti as the rich spoilt kid
Debomoy Mukherjee as Keshav
Pradip Dhar as Tukaram Apte
Arindol Bagchi as Local Inspector

Soundtrack

Arijit Singh won Best Playback Singer (Male) at the Filmfare Awards East for the song "Mon Majhi Re", which had an overwhelming response from all over Bengal. The soundtrack was released on 13 July 2017.^[8] The song Mon Majhi Re was later remade in Hindi for the film Singham Returns by Gannguli as 'Sun Le Zara', sung by Singh.

The music of the film has been composed by Jeet Gannguli. The lyrics have been penned by Meghnad, Prasen and Chandrani Gannguli.

Track listing
No.	Title	Lyrics	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"Boss (Title Track)"	Meghnad	Jeet Gannguli	3:33
2.	"Jhinkunakur Na"	Meghnad	Rana Mazumdar and Akriti Kakkar	3:40
3.	"Mon Majhi Re"	Prasen (Prasenjit Mukherjee)	Arijit Singh	5:09
4.	"Eeche Joto"	Chandrani Gannguli	Arijit Singh, Monali Thakur	3:43
5.	"Boss Mashup"			3:50
Total length:				19:55

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics. Jaya Biswas of The Times of India reviewed "Jeet looks slim and fit. He can dance, fight and emote as well. His performance — as a shrewd and confident guy, who couldn't care less about scruples in life — is worthy of mention. Though Subhashree adds to the glamour quotient, she disappoints in the acting department. She looks fabulous in smart off-shoulder tops but her chemistry with Jeet is non-existent. Our hero's one-liner seems quite pertinent here: "Raja thakle tar rani ke toh thakte i hobe". Veteran actor Chiranjeet is effective as the police commissioner. Rajatava, Supriyo and Biswajit do their bit as crooked politicians — nothing we haven't seen before. But a dull storyline and a weak script ruin the show. Too many characters create confusion. The songs fail to impress and the lyrics are not up to the mark. But cut out the nitpicking and nothing should stop Jeet fans from joining their favourite star in action."^[9]

Box office

Boss: Born to Rule was Jeet's first film to get an all-India release. Boss garnered ₹72.6 lakh (equivalent to ₹1.2 crore or US$150,000 in 2023) on the opening day.^[10] It collected ₹1.86 lakh (equivalent to ₹3.2 lakh or US$3,700 in 2023) in its first weekend.^[11] The film grossed ₹6.75 crore (equivalent to ₹11 crore or US$1.4 million in 2023).^[12]

Awards and nominations

Ceremony	Category	Nominee	Result
Kalakar Awards	Best Debut Director	Baba Yadav	Won
	Best Movie Award	Boss	Won
	Most Promising Actress	Subhashree Ganguly	Won
	Best Music Director	Jeet Gannguli	Won
Filmfare Awards East	Filmfare Award for Best Actor (male)	Jeet	Nominated
	Best Music Director	Jeet Gannguli	Won
	Best Male Playback	Arijit Singh for the song "Mon Majhi Re"	Won
	Best Choreography	Baba Yadav	Won
Mirchi Music Awards Bangla	Male Vocalist of the Year	Arijit Singh for the song "Mon Majhi Re"	Won
	Music Director of the Year	Jeet Gannguli for the song "Mon Majhi Re"	Won
	Album of the Year	Boss	Won

Sequel

Following up on the success of Boss, it was announced in September 2013, that the team of Jeet and Baba Yadav have decided to create a "Part II" sequel film with plans for distribution abroad.^[13] The sequel is titled Boss 2: Back To Rule and retains many of the same cast and crew of the original film. Unlike the first film, which was a remake of another film, Boss 2 is an original film. The sequel is also an Indo-Bangladesh joint venture, being co-produced by Bangladesh's Jaaz Multimedia. The shooting of the film was started from January 2017, and the film was released on 23 June in Bangladesh and in July in India.

References

^ "Baba Yadav is excited & confident about Boss". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Archived from the original on 15 April 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
^ Ganguly, Ruman (20 July 2013). "Jeet or Subhashree: Who is the Boss?". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
^ "Jeet likely to team up with Baba Yadav for 'Boss 3'" – via The Economic Times - The Times of India.
^ "Jeet-Subhashree shoot in Italy". The Times of India. 11 January 2017. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 19 October 2024.
^ "Boss box office report". Archived from the original on 23 March 2014.
^ "'Boss has the blessings of Amitabh Bachchan': Bengali superstar Jeet said". IBN Live. Archived from the original on 11 August 2013. Retrieved 6 August 2013.
^ "Bengali actor Biswanath promotes 'Boss'". Sify. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
^ Boss by Jeet Gannguli, 23 July 2013, archived from the original on 26 January 2017, retrieved 26 June 2017
^ "Boss review". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2013.
^ "Jeet does an SRK in Tolly". The Telegraph. 13 August 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2025.
^ "Boss Box office office report". Cinema News Online. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
^ "5 films that rocked the box office this year". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 March 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
^ staff (13 September 2013). "Jeet and Subhashree pair up for Boss sequel". Times of India. Retrieved 30 September 2013.

External links

[1] "Baba Yadav is excited & confident about Boss". The Telegraph (Calcutta). Archived from the original on 15 April 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2013.

[2] Ganguly, Ruman (20 July 2013). "Jeet or Subhashree: Who is the Boss?". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 26 February 2015.

[3] "Jeet likely to team up with Baba Yadav for 'Boss 3'" – via The Economic Times - The Times of India.

[4] "Jeet-Subhashree shoot in Italy". The Times of India. 11 January 2017. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 19 October 2024.

[5] "Boss box office report". Archived from the original on 23 March 2014.

[6] "'Boss has the blessings of Amitabh Bachchan': Bengali superstar Jeet said". IBN Live. Archived from the original on 11 August 2013. Retrieved 6 August 2013.

[7] "Bengali actor Biswanath promotes 'Boss'". Sify. Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2013.

[:0-8] Boss by Jeet Gannguli, 23 July 2013, archived from the original on 26 January 2017, retrieved 26 June 2017

[9] "Boss review". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2013.

[10] "Jeet does an SRK in Tolly". The Telegraph. 13 August 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2025.

[11] "Boss Box office office report". Cinema News Online. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2013.

[12] "5 films that rocked the box office this year". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 March 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2013.

[Times_of_India_1-13] staff (13 September 2013). "Jeet and Subhashree pair up for Boss sequel". Times of India. Retrieved 30 September 2013.

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