Bombay Velvet: When a long shot backfires

May 15, 2015 08:28 pm | Updated May 17, 2015 03:56 pm IST

A scene from the movie

A scene from the movie

Director : Anurag Kashyap

Genre : Crime Drama

Cast : Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Manish Chaudhari, Satyadeep Mishra, Kay Kay Menon

What money can do to a man? Bombay Velvet grapples with the greed both within and without. At one level it is a watered down critique of development and capitalism and at another a typical Bollywood love story helmed by a director who till date is known to create big ideas with limited budgets. This time riding on historian Gyan Prakash’s book on the history of Mumbai, Anurag Kashyap attempts to bring alive the dark tales behind the magic of Mumbai in the backdrop of a love story.

Set in the ’60s when the air was thick with resistance and romanticism, Anurag has an ambitious subject and the budget. Unfortunately, the ambition and vision don’t come together consistently enough to create a lasting impression.

He paints the past aesthetically, generates the romance effortlessly but fumbles when it comes to filling the canvas with the crux. With an eye at the box office, as the love story overshadows the politics of development, Anurag’s independent voice gets muffled. He tries to cram too much into 151 minutes and even the celebrated editor Thelma Schoonmaker cannot not salvage the flaws at the writing level. At times it seems like the costume is in place but the body is not. And at others the body screams to come out of the shining cover.

Like the scene where a stand-up comedian comments on reclaiming nature, we can sense Anurag from the subversion. We can sense it in the twisted moments on love and friendship. But for all his drive, Anurag, like his protagonist, is not yet ready to become the big shot. He misses the woods for trees.

For all its posturing the film fails to crack the myth of Mumbai. What is it that attracts moths of all sorts to this flame? For all its moorings in sub-altern history, it relies on Hindi cinema’s staples to recreate the tale of an angry young man, who seems to have watched Deewar before entering into the frame. Of course, Anurag has taken the moralistic maa out of the equation to give it the feel of the noir but it doesn’t set his protagonist Balraj free from the Bollywood tropes.

No harm in that but for all its pulpy material, it takes itself too seriously. It wants to bring in the audience who loved Milan Luthria’s Once Upon A Time In Mumbai without letting go the critics who praised Mahesh Manjrekar’s little known City of Gold . And as always falls between the two stools.

Balraj and his friend Chimman (Satyadeep Mishra is a terrific find) are small time criminals who want to rise up the ladder. In comes a media baron Khambatta (Karan Johar), who grooms them to fulfil his business interests with the mayor (Siddharth Basu). But as always ambition and egos come in the way. Balraj becomes his Johnny but wants a bigger pie and his benefactors are not ready to part with their cake. However, Anurag and his writers fail to define that cake clearly, cogently. We get to hear voices of mill workers, the suggestions of builder-media-politician nexus are in place but these remain footnotes of the Balraj-Rosie love story. All that talk of politics of reclamation remains scattered like the islands that shape the city. You have to carry “Mumbai Fables” with you to get to the Nariman Point. For all its capitalist versus communist shadow boxing the writing treats the audience with kid gloves.

At another level though the vulnerability of Balraj and the feisty Rosie make us invest in the film. Rosie is a strong Anurag Kashyap heroine. Somebody, who has risen above pain to find true love, she treasures it but Balraj wants to put his name on some property first. If their budding romance is electric, their acrimony is infectious.

However, the joys give diminishing returns. Amidst all the attention on detailing of the costumes and computer generated imagery, the screenplay loses direction. While the motivations of two rival newspaper barons are clear their actions get just short of ridiculous in the second half. From blackmail to look alikes, the film threatens to become a potboiler of the ’70s. Ultimately, the writing affects the performances as well. Balraj’s return to the boxing ring after each turmoil in his life is gimmicky.

The contours of the characters expect a little too much from Ranbir and the actor to his credit doesn’t allow Balraj to become a caricature even when he is asked to do a Faizal (of Gangs of Wasseypur) with a tommy gun towards the end to manufacture the frenzy. It is Anushka as the Geeta Dutt-inspired jazz singer, who steals the show. Unlike Ranbir who wears Kishore Kumar and Raj Kapoor on the skin, Anushka internalises the Waheedas and Madhubalas of the times.

Karan Johar makes his debut as a wicked media baron and his coldness is disturbing. When he sniggers, it becomes disconcerting but by the end Khambatta loses bite for Karan has yet to develop skills to justify a layered character. Similarly, Manish Chaudhari as his rival Jimmy Mistry’s (inspired by Russi Karanjia of “Blitz”) relishes the cigar and the atmosphere but is ultimately reduced to a cross between reporter and editor, which doesn’t pass muster.

The background score remains jazz in all moods. We don’t get to hear any other strain giving the film a one-dimensional sound. It is hard to believe that somebody was describing heart beats as ‘dhadam dhadam’ in a song in the late ’60s. It is this mishmash of tonalities that makes Velvet feel uneven.

Bottomline: The mood is electric but the story goes stale

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