An anti-hero and his side kick, a rich and powerful
antagonist, a glamorous heroine and a rags to riches story. This is not about the
angry young man of the 70s; it is about the new angry young man - Ranbir Kapoor
– I am Johnny Balraj, nice to meet you..
The remarkable and vivacious sets recreate Bombay from the
60s and the 70s and make you go for a ride down the lanes of Bombay in style.
The amber colour tint to the film brings back the Eastmancolor era. The classic vintage cars, smoking pipes, double
decker buses with monkey brand advertisements, almost empty streets and Amit
Trivedi’s jazzy music score only add to the detailing required for a period
film.
Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay
Velvet is more than just a typical rags to riches story. The story details on
how Bombay was reclaimed from the ocean. The seven islands in Bombay were
bought together by the then influential people of Bombay. Jimmy Mistry and Kaizad Khambatta are media
kingpins who are rivals. Johnny Balraj is the guy who wants to be a big shot.
He is fascinated by watching a finale scene from the movie – The Roaring Twenties just as Kashyap is
fascinated by L.A. Quartlet or Quentin Tarantino and world cinema in
general. The film’s climax has a slow motion sequence where Johnny enters a
room with tommy guns in his hands and there is drum roll in the background.
Karan Johar plays Khambatta and acts himself; quite
literally where in one of the scenes he says this to Johnny Balraj over the
phone, “Aisa kya hai Rosie ke paas jo mere paas nahi hai..” This is a serious scene
though.
Also worth mentioning is that casting director Mukesh Chhabra has casted a child Johnny Balraj who looks exactly how Ranbir Kapoor
would have looked like in his childhood.
After losing the Ugly spat with the Censor Board over the
disclaimer tag for smoking scenes; this time, Kashyap has put a permanent ‘Smoking
Kills’ tag in Bombay Velvet whether his characters are smoking or not. Points level.
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