Direction: Anurag Kashypap
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Satyadeep Mishra, Manish Chaudhari, Kay Kay Menon, Siddhartha Basu, Vivaan Shah
Ratings: 4 Star Rating: Recommended4 Star Rating: Recommended (2/5)
It's one thing to be audacious, quite another to pull it off. Like his hero Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor), Anurag Kashyap dares and dreams a lot, but he struggles. In Kashyap's case, it is to keep viewers interested in his period tale.
The signs of a misfire are immediate. Bombay Velvet rushes from one decade to another, giving a half-hearted glance of the childhood woes of its leads, Balraj and Rosie, and quickly moves to their struggling adulthood. This fast-track approach fails to draw empathy for Johnny and Rosie and acquaint them well. Balraj has grown up in the red light area of Falkland Road with an uncaring mother. Rosie has escaped from an abusive relationship in Portuguese-occupied Goa. Both are in Bombay hoping for a better life like many migrants still do. But Bombay is a mirage, a city which promises a lot but most often delivers little. In such a cynical backdrop, it is Balraj and Rosie's love story which is supposed to offer hope.
Balraj is a jack of all trades and master of none. He is a street-smart guy who wants to be a "big shot" and resorts to all possible means - even if it requires killing people - to make it in the City of Dreams. It's ballsy of Kapoor, best known for his urban cool dude roles, to be an amoral character with a volatile temper and greed. Balraj desires a lavish life, but it is at crossroads with his love for Rosie (Anushka Sharma), a jazz singer at a club he manages. Rosie has her share of secrets and lies, but they never seem as fatal as the writers want viewers to believe. The thorns in the couple's love story are the warring media barons Jimmy Mistry (Manish Chaudhari) and Khambatta (Karan Johar), the latter also a scheming businessman, and other supporting characters. Johnny and Rosie are caught up in a war for land in Mumbai. But the stakes appear big only on page; the threat and tension never manifest themselves on to the screen.
ALSO READ: Ananya Bhattacharya's review of Bombay Velvet
Like Dibakar Banerjee's period film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, Bombay Velvet is epic in its vision but tepid in its storytelling. Kashyap's first big-budget studio film tries to be many things - a star-cross'd romance, a high-octane action film with bullets and blood, a Cabaret-like musical, a thriller with cops and gangsters, a paean to the multifaceted Mumbai - but it struggles to do justice to any of them. For a filmmaker known for taking off the beaten path, Kashyap surprisingly resorts to cliches and formulas with an ill-conceived double role. By second half, he is struggling to reach what has for long been a foreseeable end.
Bombay may be Kashyap's muse here, but it also feels a bane. Kashyap tries to incorporate its myriad issues but fails to do it engagingly. Aspirations, frustrations, ambition, greed, manipulation, betrayal, struggles and rivalries abound the canvas of Bombay Velvet. But for a film with so much happening, it's amazing that little registers an impact or feels of consequence. At best, Bombay Velvet is a visually extravagant and stylish spectacle with Rajeev Ravi's cinematography particularly striking. But it's ultimately a superfluous affair.
[SPOILER ALERT] It's best evident in the slo-mo climax which unfolds to emphatic drumbeats. The hero barges in with a flurry of bullets but the net result with crashing plates and low body count feels high on style and low on drama.
The passionate romance works only in parts, thanks to the chemistry between Kapoor and Sharma. Amit Trivedi's soundtrack adds energy to the otherwise lacklustre proceedings, with the tracks being used cleverly to move the story along. Dhadaam Dhadaam, which reminded us of Teesri Manzil's Tumne Mujhe Dekha with its central theme of a lovers' spat, particularly strikes a chord. Bombay Velvet takes itself so seriously that isn't surprising that the film is desperately short on laughs with the first moment of serious fun coming when Khambatta steps out to have a mocking laugh at the expense of Johnny.
ALSO READ: Gayatri Jayaraman's review of Bombay Velvet
Like most Kashyap films, plenty of grey characters occupy the frame. Kapoor's Johnny is one of the rare few to leave a mark. The talented Kapoor delivers a performance which demonstrates the desperation of Johnny, a pawn trying to be a king. It's not an easy character to root for, but Kapoor manages to tap into his vulnerabilities. Kashyap has handled ensemble dramas ably, but here only Satyadeep Mishra as Johnny's friend and Johar's Khambatta stand out. Johar in particular enjoys the part of an antagonist with a secret of his own. His creepy, silent gaze only makes him more menacing. But the weak narrative doesn't allow any of the actors to shine.
Kashyap's foray into mainstream is ambitious in its scale but flawed in its execution.
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