Bombay Velvet: A beauty without soul

Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Kay Kay Menon

Rated: 4.5/10

Take a 40s Hollywood gangster movie, preferably helmed by Al Pacino and his henchmen, give it a Martin Scorsese technique, splash it with a whole lot of sepia shades, get a villain who is a known newbie and roll all this into an equally sepia Bombay of the 70s, and you have an Anurag Kashyap film on gangster megapolis of the old world type.

Bombay Velvet exists as much in the curls of a callow-looking Ranbir Kapoor as it does in the aspirations, frustration and exploitation of the what was the predecessor of the quintessential Mumbai bar dancer played impeccably by Anushka Sharma. Those were the days when Mumbai had just started bursting at its seams, crime was bedecking the docks, women were being packed off to red light areas and old time clubs were turning into exclusive preserves of the rich and the famous with shady deals being struck to the clinking of glasses.

That time, Bombay was also about land sharks, gangster killings, political corruption, unscrupulous moneybags and the race to take away Mumbai from its common, mill working people and land it into the deep pockets of the upcoming corporates and the building mafia. All this and much more of the ambience has excellently been captured and unfolded by Kashyap and his art director and cinematographer. The lyricist and the music composer have also done a commendable job to create music for that era and give so much delightful meaning to the songs. You will get swayed by the tone of “jazz” diva Anushka’s crescendo of the pitch while singing.

But it’s the story that does it in, otherwise brilliantly laid out film. Not that Ranbir as a small-time gangster with ambitions of owning a high rise on Marine Drive does a bad job as Johnny ‘obsessive lover, obsessive killer’ job but despite him and the chemistry between him and Anushka as the singer in his club does not have much credible things to do here. Karan Johar tries to look menacing in a commonplace kind of manner but doesn’t really make that much of an impact. And from the start you known what the fate of the main characters will be.

You could call this one as beauty without a soul.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 17 May, 2015