Critics rating: 2 Stars

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Kay Kay Menon, Manish Chaudhary, Satyadeep Misra, Siddharth Basu, Vivaan Shah.

Direction: Anurag Kashyap

Produced: Vikas Bahl, Vikramaditya Motwane.

Written: Vasan Bala, Gyan Prakash, Anurag Kashyap, S.Thanikachalam.

Genre: Thriller.

Duration: 149 Mins

Two years after Independence, India is limping towards sovereignty while the divide between the affluent and the impoverished remains. Bombay, the port city, holds promise for the migrants. Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor) is a wide-eyed boy weaving through the crowds with his adoptive mother. It is a time when the headlines scream about the Alcohol Prohibition and Nathuram Godse’s trial.

The Bombay dream goes sour when the woman is forced into prostitution. Before you can feel sorry for the hero’s circumstances, we switch over to Rosie Noronha’s (Anushka Sharma) track in Portuguese-occupied Goa. Impressed by her singing, a music teacher (Remo Fernandes, guest appearance) takes her under his wing, though seems to be the instructor from hell. Given enough screentime, he would probably make Whiplash’s Terence Fletcher seem a mellow mentor in comparison.

Either fate or their own initiative compels them to flee from their respective situations and converge at the Bombay Velvet club. The year is 1969 and the club is funded by media baron Kaizad Khambata (Karan Johar) and owned by Balraj, his lackey whom Khambata rechristens as Johnny Balraj.

Johnny’s meteoric rise to the top is what he aspired to be – a big shot, the term he learns while watching Raoul Walsh’s The Roaring Twenties with his bosom pal Chimman (Satyadeep Misra). It is evident that he has derived the ambition but not the message in the film’s tragic culmination.

 

After smuggling gold biscuits for Larsen (Denzil Smith), he is just at home being a hired henchman for Khambata. If crime pays, Balraj’s deeds have reaped the richest dividends. Khambata’s rival Jamshed Mistry (Manish Choudhary) has another take on Johnny where he says, “Footpath pesangmarmarchadaane se woh Taj Mahal nahihojaata.”

It is the ideological tussle between the two powerfulmoguls that trap Balraj and Rosie in their midst. Somewhere in the backdrop are the protesting cotton mill workers, fighting for their rights (though it is not the film’s main focus).

For all its attempts at plotting and recreating an era of jazz in the smoke-curtained nightclubs, Bombay Velvet does not make the cut. The story suffers on account of too many ideas undone by either poor execution or sheer self-indulgence. We never end up caring about Johnny or Rosie. There is no major backstory on their childhood which would help us better understand their motivations, temperaments (especially Johnny’s seething anger issues) and their perspectives.

Some more details on how Johnny rose from being a street fighter to a nightclub owner would have added to the story. The attention and screen time is instead devoted to his romance with Rosie which is not endearing to begin with.

 

Supporting characters played by Vivaan Shah and Kay Kay Menon lead to nowhere in the plot. It is a waste of talented actors. Karan Johar, on the other hand, is a scene-stealer. Watch out for the sequence where he tries to suppress his laughter when Johnny makes a greater demand than his street cred can encash.

Despite his presence, the film has a dragging pace. Bombay Velvet is Anurag Kashyap’s stab at a mainstream film, set during a period of noir Bombay, resplendent bars, husky jazz singers and gun-toting mercenaries. In spite of the attention to detail, the look has less of an earthy Detective ByomkeshBakshy! feeland more of the polished Bollywood gloss.

When the sheen wears off, the boredom and the brooding ambience gets the better of you. It creeps in to the point where unintended hilarity ensues when Khambata asks Johnny, “Rosie mein tumne aisa kya dekha jo mujh mein nahi dekha?”

The strange edits do not help, utilising slow motion unnecessarily in a few places or cutting a scene abruptly short before it settles in your mind (even if it is meant for effect). A random plot track featuring a “twin” makes the proceedings all the more ludicrous.

If you must, wait for a DVD release. This tripdown to the factional wars of yore is not worth your time.