Oh, joy. An Indian version of the tired rags-to-racketeer story. Now I’m no student of Indian cinema, so I have no idea how many Scarface rip-offs the country is responsible for, but I trust by now that, worldwide, all peoples have learned the same lesson when it comes to rise-of-gangster films – if your main character is a douche, there’s only so far the film can go.
Bombay Velvet did not learn this lesson, happily parading before us a back alley kid turned selfish, self-centered, cold-blooded killer. Street punk Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor, India’s answer to John Turturro) grew up in free India, which is probably only useful in knowing this meant he robs Englishmen rather than the other way around. Going for a big score, he attacks a big wad bank customer with a shielded finger (a gambit that doesn’t even work on they playground). The customer calls his bluff and Balraj flees to his getaway car. While the getaway car is failing to getaway, the customer, Khambatta (Karan Johar) gets in the car, presents his loot to Balraj and beckons him to his own underworld. Deals with the Devil don’t get any clearer.
Next scene, of course, Khambatta is teaching “Johnny Balraj” to perforate corpses (much like one tenderizes meat before cooking) as they’ll sink better that way. Ok, to be fair, while the rest of this movie feels derivative, I didn’t know about drowning corpses.
*The more you know*
Johnny has two dreams: to be a big man and to capture Rosie (Anushka Sharma), who is tied to a better man, or not, well, at least that guy isn’t a criminal. No instead, he’s a newspaper editor who has his wife go undercover, fully knowing Johnny lusts for her, to extract an incriminating negative of a local politician.
I hate this story line. I hate everything about it. I’m not wild about blackmail or (essentially) forcing your wife into sex slavery or the inevitable when she falls in love with the criminal. “He’s taught me to hit back!” Oh. That’s gotta be Top 5 in qualities a woman looks for in a man – a guy who hits, but expects me to retaliate.
Bombay Velvet has some style. It’s Bollywood
in the idea that it’s Indian with plenty of singing and dancing – thing is the singing is 100% Rosie on stage at Johnny’s club – the Bombay Velvet — and the dancing is the girls in back of Rosie. The gangster part has style, too. Unfortunately, that style is one every crime movie fan has seen already: scenes of violence cut to newspaper headlines overdubbed by some Bengali version of rat pack music.
And then Bombay Velvet has a distinct lack of style and imagination when a “dead” Rosie tries to pass for being her own long, lost sister, who just happens to look exactly like her and sing her numbers at the club … just like her. Man, this is some embarrassing detective work. India – get a “CSI” show or two; raise those policing standards.
Johnny dreamed of being big
No matter what the cost
Hard to say when given chance
If his soul was really lost
For Johnny never seemed to care
If he’d broken any law
Live fast, die young in any land
Becomes the same old saw
Not Rated (but pretty violent), 149 Minutes
D: Anurag Kashyap
W: Vasan Bala, Anurag Kashyap, Gyan Prakash Thani
Genre: Mumbafia
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Indian gangsters
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Honest, competent policemen
annabelle
friended to death
