Bombay Velvet has been in the news since the time it was announced. Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Karan Johar in the lead, the film is inspired from Gyan Prakash’s book, Mumbai Fables, which is a story about the city’s recent history. Bombay Velvet is director Anurag Kashyap’s first big-budget film, which has had its share of controversies. But the big question is, has Kashyap managed to prove his detractors wrong, does Bombay Velvet keep the audience engaged for 2 and a half hours? Let’s find out!
[advert]
Story: Bombay is the principal character in Bombay Velvet. It showcases how Bombay has evolved over the years through the journey of Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor). A boxer turned goon, his journey in boxing begins when he gets in the boxing ring of free-for-all fighting to earn some easy Money. As the film progresses Johnny and his best friend Chiman (Satyadeep Misra) become ace-henchmen for Kaizad Khambata (Karan Johar). Kaizad then gifts the ‘Bombay Velvet’ club as a goodwill gesture to Johnny. Bombay Velvet becomes the hub of Bombay, attracting everyone’s attention, especially Jimmy Mistry’s (Manish Chaudhary). Mistry, as a ploy to finish Johnny and Khambatta’s monopoly, sends the beautiful jazz singer Rosie (Anushka Sharma) as a honey trap to lure Johnny. He realises that Johnny already has his heart set on Rosie. Unable to guess the truth behind Rosie’s sudden love, Johnny immediately accepts her. Meanwhile things turn hunky-dory between Johnny and Kaizad as well. The plot thickens when Kaizad tries to create a divide between Johnny and Chinman. Johnny also realises the truth behind Rosie’s past. Who ultimately succeeds and emerges victorious forms the crux of the film.
Also Read: Bombay Velvet Critic Reviews
Bombay Velvet Review: The biggest flaw in Bombay Velvet is its pace and storytelling. The story of friendship, love and deceit, is something that we have all seen in several Bollywood films. The visual presentation and performances are brilliant, however, they cannot compensate for a good script. The film lacks soul and one really cannot feel for any of the characters. The climax is a big let-down. Ideally, Bombay Velvet should have been further edited as the film completely falls apart in the second half. So much so that you no longer care for the story or its characters.
Ranbir Kapoor, Karan Johar – Bombay Velvet Movie Review
The art and costume department deserves a special mention. The efforts that they have put into the film, deserves appreciation. Music by Amit Trivedi further adds to the woes. There is not a single song that one can recollect after the film. In fact, each song in Bombay Velvet acts as speed-breakers, ruining the pace of the film.
The biggest strength of Anurag Kashyap lies in extracting the best performances from all his characters. Ranbir Kapoor lives the character of Johnny Balraj, rising above the weak script in several scenes. Watch him in the scene where he threatens Kaizad Khambatta and one is rest assured that he has a long career ahead of him. Surprisingly, Karan Johar makes an impressive debut (full-fledged role) as the menacing Kaizad Khambatta. The unpredictability and uncertainty in his character is one of the key highlights of the film. Watch him in the scene where he just bursts out laughing when he hears Johnny’s accent. Anushka Sharma as Rosie is honest in her portrayal. However, she is overshadowed by the other characters in the film. Her chemistry with Ranbir is good.
Ranbir’s best friend Chinman (Satyadeep Mishra) is absolutely brilliant. He doesn’t have many dialogues in the film, but he impresses with his expressions. The same can be said for (Jimmy Mistry) Manish Chaudhary. Tony (Vivaan Shah) is good in a brief role. Kay Kay Menon does well too.
Overall, Bombay Velvet is a brave attempt that falls way short of expectations. If only the script was as impressive as the visual grandeur of the film. It does have good performances, excellent production design and fantastic costumes. Everything else misfires big time, including Anurag Kashyap’s direction.
Positives
- Performances are good. Ranbir and Karan Johar do well.
- Production design and
Negatives
- Slow pace, direction
- Weak script
- Music
Rating: 
“The very reason why a lot of people know Nipun and even care about his reviews.. is because of Indicine and their platform.. and he says Indicine sucks. LOL. ”
Why did he post this status ? I like and respect @indicine which is why I’m still visiting and commenting here. I always like the various articles and the addictive comment section. Even some of my friends visit indicine too as I had admired indicine in front of them.
But here I’m talking about their reviews! I have no problem that they didn’t like BV! But what I am trying to say is.. They are biased towards some films i.e they rate them High even after mentioning the flaws. For example, during the time of HNY, They had mentioned flaws like its bad editing, over-long screenplay etc, but still they gave it 4/5.
@nipun : You will never understand that it is not critics who brings moolah and success to movies and stars but audience. BV music liked by critics then let them download on their phones and ipods and listen continuously but majority of audience (common public) have not even heard a song from BV album including me !!!!!!!!!!!!!
@indicine is Raveena tondon a part of Bombay velvet?
@Djc, Yes. She has a very very small role.
@Babaji : Just like You had criticized indicine for calling Holiday illogical and ignoring logic in case of films like D3, I am also here criticizing their reviews . For Bombay Velvet, they gave it 2/5 mentioning its bad screenplay,direction and Music(as for them music is bad too) in their reviews. But they have given good ratings to many films despite these three things . Eg.
1. Happy New Year: They had mentioned the bad editing, not-so-impressive music and over-long screenplay. But when it comes to rating , they Happily gave it 4/5.
2. Jai ho: You know how bad the direction and music were! Even the performances were big let down( only Tabu was good). But they gave it 3 stars
and the list proceeds with Alone, Creature 3D and manymore.
And, should I ask @sht that what SOUL he had found in Torturously-over-long HNY?
Definitely will watch it on tomorrow or Sunday.
I think every genre should have different type of ratings. If you want to compare two movies, they need to have same genre. You can pick Humshakals and Bang Bang and say that BB is better but they are different genres and should be treated differently. Comedy movies NEVER have good story so why should they be compared with the same scale someone uses to rate PIKU or Lootera. Each movie should be reviewed with it’s genre. Bang Bang was a bad action movie, Humshakals was a bad comedy movie, and HNY was a bad masala movie. Bombay Velvet as, per reviews, is a bad period-drama film. We can not compare it with Gori Tere Pyaar Mein as that was an average Rom-Com film.
music was awesome to be honest. Amit trivedi is a legend
@Nippun HNY was very good movie it promised entertainment and it succeeded certen extent. If it was torturous then it would have not done 36-40 cr in its second week despite large number of people have already watched in first week itself. Pk had supreme content and hirani touch and kick had better action with entertainer than HNY this does not mean HNY was bad the way u trying to portrays about it. I never said it was classic but it was quite decent entertainer.
Feeling very very bad for Ranbir Kapoor, I have said many times that one year beak after besharam wouldnt be good for him, and his first full fledged film which release is Bombay Welvet which was surrounding with huge negativity for long time.The trailer sucks and music is not appealing.
Anurag kashyap is hugely overrated director,except GOW none of his films were box office success, a superb director is one who irrespective of genre capable to give success, just look Shoojit Sarkar he succeeded with Vicky donor,piku,madras cafe etc.
Anugag Kashyap thought that the director who makes movies like kick,CE etc are fools and he is intelligent. He choose first commercial film with A list actor, than look the villain he casted KJo, seriously. A routine film with no novelty in script, wasted 100cr of rs. Atleast story should be superb but he neither story nor screenplay was appreciated.Performances are good.
I hope Ranbir will back with superb films.
1st and foremost criteria ,a movie said to be great / good if is a REALISTIC movie which shouldn’t contain any manipulative scenes which today’s almost every movie contains in Bollywood.I’m not supporting only some chosen actors be it’s pk,kick,bang bang,HNY all has manipulative scenes that I don’t like at all which h critics also don’t like.but Indian audiences like it very much.if that’s the the only criteria that Indian urban audiences/single screen likes the movie so much and the collected more is the reason,then I don’t at all can accept and appreciate.
2nd criteria after REALISTIC criteria is CINEMATOGRAPHY and PRODUCTIONS.whether the the movie looks like world class movie or 2rs cheap lower level productions.
3rd criteria is the INTENSITY OR DEEPNESS OF ACT/STRONG PERFORMANCES which makes a movie even stronger.which is called THE HEART of a movie.
4th criteria to measure is the story /content which should be written in a REALISTIC WAY(that 70% of Indian writers never do).getting a best story in a REALISTIC WAY is difficult in Hollywood level also.while Bollywood is busy in making of craps and praises itself as classics(pk,holiday and few more).these are called wannabe classics considering 1st,2nd,3rd,4th criteria all.
If a movie holds good all in 1st 3 criterias that movie should be called great/CLASS MOVIE.while if average content also appreciable if your movie can hold 1st 3 criteria in a strong way the biggest example is HAIDER which is still so far the best movie of all time in this decade tied with JTHJ according to me in big budget films which are WORLD CLASS MOVIES with big star cast excluding small movies.
This is THE THEORY that I use to mark a film though I’m not interested of writing reviews.this is the criteria that OSCAR JURY uses to praise world class films(not only Hollywood movies).
So I’m not the fool who will follow any rajiv/anupama whom I actually don’t know to get review a film because this is the country in which even peoples like krk can also review,what’s bigger joke other than this!!!!!,lol.if anyone can consider these criterias then He/She can review better than Indian critics.
Some of them also said what majority decides that should be called great movies.well,in Indian cinema majority is a just a big joke.India’s highest earned movie pk watched by almost 8-13% of audiences (worldwide),then how the hell we can say majority works?????I must say WORLD CLASS movies (excluding Indian movies) has the majority of audience’s reviews that completely different than the type of movies Indian watches.I am talking about masala movies in which Indian audiences are very much interested.even certain things even going lower that regional industry also started back long time who are masters of making super craps.Indians are still immature to choose to think about a right direction.
Among actors,I found KING SRK (MOST REALISTIC MOVIES to HIS NAME),Hrithik,Ranbir,Shahid(few),Ajay,amir(very few) ,akshay(very few) doing some realistic movies which I liked.new comers like varun dhawan is trying to his versatility which too appreciable.
I know most people will laugh at this note as a general person written this(may considering even me as a diehard SRKIAN) though I wrote this with out biasing towards anyone .but THIS IS THE ULTIMATE TRUTH that good/best movie should have and OSCAR/FILMFARE is based upon these criteria that anyone can check.and this is the last point where everyone has to agree besides some illiterate, over smart ,fool,blind fanatics.
@sss: your comment was long and not perfect! But still I enjoyed reading it.
only deepika can save ranbir now!!.. haha.. i guess his nxt wld do well!!.. i believe ranbir was alwyz overrated .. he has a long way to go n he will learn.. to fit in the shoes of srk i dnt think thats anybodyz cup of tea now.. also coz bollywood has changed quite a bit n there is space for even actors like arjun and ranveer..ranbir might succeed in being the best of the lot thgh if his overacting abilities are kept at bay.. but if any1 thinks he can be the nxt srk i believe none can.. not to mention no matter what salman is untouchable in stardom.. he is one and only types!!.. n nobody certaily can be on par with aamir.. legends they are!!.. n then there are others to beat too..
its stupid to even compare these new actors with the likes of akshay and ajay or hrithik.. hrithik is the only one who one can say has gr8 stardom althgh lesser than the legends ofcourse!!.. ranbir very rightly as of now is much below all of them in experience and in stardom no matter if anybody likes it or not.. the veterans still rule !!
@nipun,thanks for that because today’s 90% of perfect comments are completely meaningless.and that was general expectation from readers like you who’ll give importance towards perfection rather the content because sometimes peoples will take their opinions the greatest ,the biggest that they will not want anyone should overshadow their content and tried to avoid TRUTH.
Actually may be just for censor board or for decent audience in the complete dialogue.. ‘agar tune muzhe chodana..kaat dealing tujhe… Taali bajate dikhega’… Forcefully.. Tujhe.. use Kiya… Which required.. Tera