Remove the commentary, the burning bush and the Jesus counter and you've still got an awesome video. The initial weak fizzy fireworks rapidly escalate into a full-blown mortar strike, right in some innocent street in 'Murica somewhere. It's intense, scarcely comprehensible chaos, and it actually puts things like the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan to shame in terms of its 'holy-crap!' factor. It even has that temporary deafness effect following the closest firework explosion. Epic.
The Commentary
We've just moved from 'great' to amazing. Whoever is behind the camera, I salute you. First of all, this guy knows how to shoot video. Even though shit is going crazy all around him, he keeps that camera steady. Not a lot of people could do that. If fireworks started blowing up at my feet I'd curl up and cry like a baby. But forget his camera skills, that's small-fry. This is one YouTube friendly guy. He is so awesome. His 'Jesus' freakout is great, then after the fireworks stop he shows great awareness of being part of something epic. His fear is gone, adrenaline is pumping: 'DAT WAZ AWESOME. DAT WAZ AWESOME RIGHT THERE. NAAW. DAWW.' Fuck, yeah it was. And then: he sees a burning bush. It seems, every YouTube commentator has taken their time to point out the incredible irony of a dude shouting 'JESUS' at a burning bush. That's not even irony, bitches. But who gives a crap about that. The burning bush incident is great because it brings out the immortal line, 'GET DA WATER NIGGA!'. What a line. What a moment, one made all the funnier by the lameness of the fire. It's barely smouldering. But to this guy it's a cataclysm. GET DA WATER NIGGA! He's not done yet though. There's one more trick up his sleeve. The catchphrase, the line that gives the video its title. 'MOTHERFUCKING BOOTLEG FIREWORKS!'. Catchphrases are essential. Think, 'I like turtles', or 'Charlie bit me'. Every great video needs one. And this is one of the best. The 'motherfucking' tells us this video is sufficiently gangtsa. The 'bootleg' denotes how badly (but for us, brilliantly) the situation became, and the 'fireworks' tells us what the video is about. That last bit might be lame, but fireworks are awesome enough to make the preceding two 'markers' even more awesome. If it was something like 'motherfucking bootleg DVDs' then it would be an order of degrees lamer. But it's not. It's fireworks. Dat shit cray'.
The Overlay
There is one last awesome element of this video, that guarantees it (if it weren't already) a place in the pantheon of YouTube great. It's the 'Jesus counter' and the subtitles. This is its YouTube-iness, the subtle laughing at the video's protagonists, but also with them, emphasising their quirks. I like the bit where the dude says 'REEKRIS' and it add's 1/2 to the Jesus count.
In all, this is the perfect YouTube video. It has something awesome and unusual - fireworks going off at ground level. It has something hilarious (featuring an ethnic minority - YouTube loves that). And it has some hilarious back-seat mickey-taking. And and, it comes in at one minute exactly. One minute of heaven.
