Aparna Gangopadhyay Here is a little background of the hero and heroine of the film.Hero (Ranbir)- A (around) 6 years old boy reaches Bombay in 1949 – 2 years after independence with a female – he is not sure whether the female he accompanied was his mother or not. Nevertheless, the female takes up prostitution and somehow feeds the hero…she of course makes use of him to do small errands like getting rum and soda for her clients and later when he grew up, she made him her pimp too.Hero befriends the sons of other prostitutes of the locality and basically grew up only seeing poverty, insult and humiliation throughout. His only entertainment was films and he was obviously enamoured by the life style of the rich and the famous as he watched the films. He joins a fight club to earn money, later gets picked up by a rich pimp (played by Karan) who used to be a pimp to his own wife! Heroine (Anushka) – A small, around 8 years old girl is seen singing carols in a church. A male in his late 30's sees her sing and asks her mother to let him train her. The mother was some absolutely dumb female who happily gives away her 8 years old daughter to a total stranger. Then begins her physical and sexual abuse – from the age of 8 to around 18 she goes through physical abuse and then one day she musters enough courage to hit the aged music master pig on his head and runs away.She reaches Bombay – models wearing a skimpy outfit – her sense of shame had died long ago you see, sings in a night club (yeah- from church carols to horny broken voiced tart songs)! Watching such films people do lose faith in God or church…imagine a simple small town 8 years old girl singing songs of the lord….lands up becoming a prostitute rendering abnormal sexual services since the age of 8! How sick is that! So these two people come together and you can imagine what a life they can have. A life full of humiliation with a gory ending.So how did they make money and lead a lavish life? They get hired by a rich pimp who manages to launch prostitution in an elite way to the rich debauch pigs of the society! Prostitution has been the most lucrative business since eons…and such professions go hand in hand with smuggling drugs, gold, weapons and all such sorts of criminal activities.The police and Government is helpless to curb such things because higher officials themselves hanker after prostitutes! So there is no solution to such cases in our country.

PimpinAinttEasy Dear Anurag Kashyap, Is the Bombay shown in this movie real? Were there really clubs like the one in the movie back in the 1960's? And were there such decked up classy looking singers, dancers and stand up comedians in these clubs? I find it hard to believe. I have read about V.S.Naipaul's travels across Bombay in his book An Area of Darkness. The book paints a different picture of Bombay in the 1960's. Naipaul described it as a dreadful and crowded place where people had no individuality. I thought your film was quite uninspired. I could not watch more than half of it. The problem with the film was that it spent too much time showing off the sets and the jazz clubs. The clubs and the jazz music needed to be in the background but somehow they encroach into other areas of the film. They serve as a distraction and not as a feature of the film that lends weight to the narrative.Another source of irritation for me was the acting. I guess you had to cast phony and overrated actors like Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma to finance this 120 crore film. The actors were described perfectly during a discussion on the Indian cinema board on IMDb by another user - they simply slog through their roles. Karan Johar had reasonably good screen presence. But his performance was nothing to write home about - he does not take too many risks and simply underplays it. Ranbir Kapoor was unbearable. He seemed to be working under the impression that playing an upstart working class man involves making silly faces and running around like a monkey. I cannot understand the excessive praise for the actor who played Chiman. I am sure he would be forgotten like Deepak Dobriyal (who was unnecessarily hyped up after an above average performance in Omkara). Also, there were too many wooden actors in the supporting roles. The film was nice to look at. But I cannot remember a single scene that stood out. It all seemed so counterfeit.Bombay Velvet was a disappointment. But I will definitely watch your next film, Anurag. Best Regards, Pimpin.

Ajit Tiwari "Bombay Velvet", Anurag Kashyap's most ambitious project riding on 90 crores, based on the "Mumbai Fables" by Gyan Prakash. It starts just after the Indian independence and tells the story of how the seven islands become Bombay, the reclamation, corrupt politician, organized crime, Jazz cafés and love story of Johnny Balraj and Rosie.Balraj comes to Bombay with his mother and wants to become "Big Shot" and he can go to any length to achieve his dreams.We all admire Anurag Kashyap for the cinematic brilliance and he has taken the affliction of taking the Indian Cinema to the next level. We all have seen "Black Friday", "Dev D","Gulaal", "GOW 1&2" and "Ugly". He is a man with panache and his movies deal with burning issues and fantastic subjects. However, "Bombay Velvet" fell really short on all aspects, it never embraces you as a viewer and it never connects with you.It has a world-class art direction, awesome sets of Bombay erected in Sri Lanka, fantastic cinematography and CGI. Every nuance of 60's Bombay has been put to the detail. The background score is mostly loud but some songs compliment the scenes. It runs for 150 delirious minutes.However, the writing is never convincing, it tries to be "Godfather", "Goodfellas" and "Scarface" altogether. The culmination is pretty sour as we never understand the sudden changes. There are many subplots which do not add anything to the story and left open.Ranbir's character is powerful but it is confused between a gangster and a lover. Anushka Sharma doesn't have much to do except lip sync and some exaggerated scenes. Karan Johar looks phony as a slick and stylish villain but he is flat throughout the movie. Why did he laugh so much on the word "Tender", it looked awful? Satyadeep Mishra has done a good job. Kay Kay impresses as always in a small role.We could also see Varun Grover's stand-up comedy presentation in the café.This could have been a way better film if some more time would have been invested in writing because it has some instances of being a masterpiece.

Avdhesh Rai This film is one of the honest films. Once I felt the stories from the feel, I was literally blown. This film will grow on you. You'll demand to watch it again later because the films is very subtle. This is one film which should have been praised however it is not. The most striking aspects of Bombay Velvet are its evocative visual texture and its lush and layered sound design. The Bombay Velvet plot is littered with street fights, shootouts and murders on the one hand, and jazz sounds, bitter tabloid wars, fierce political rivalries, deadly depredations of land sharks and labor unrest on the other. Please watch it once and watch is carefully before someone telling you not to watch the film.