Who hates Anurag Kashyap?

I bought tickets to the Bombay Velvet before the scathing reviews came out. Reviews that called it Anur AAG or AK ki Aag and lamented loudly about how one man's dream (Anurag Kashyap's) becomes another's (audience's) nightmare. Reviews that called it an epic fail and so on, and deemed it a massive flop on the second day of its release before it was even given a chance.

So it was with least expectation and much trepidation I went to see the movie - quite prepared to walk out as soon as boredom struck. I walk out of many (make that almost all) Hindi films, my tolerance for poor storytelling being zero. Regardless of the hero.

So here goes my two cents. At interval point in the movie, I was totally impressed. In spite of a genre done to death - film noir (Martin Scorsese even finds a fleeting mention in the film) - and a rather indulgent telling of a story you already know and have seen many times before, I came out to buy pop corn thinking, "hey, nice movie". Very well shot. Well performed - Ranbir Kapoor is at his vulnerable and shaky best, awesome acting debut by Karan Johar (we are going to of course ignore Dilwaale Dulhaniya Leh Jaayenge here), excellent music, high octane nostalgia and most of all, a slice of history. The history of Mumbai, or rather Bombay. The land of the Parsi, drenched in postcolonial hypocrisy, before the Dawoods and Chota Rajans changed its face forever. A side of Mumbai's history nobody knows or has seen before. The film has so many pluses that I was willing to completely ignore the papier mache cut out sets trying to pass off as streets and clubs and rich men's nests.

My God, I felt fascinated. Is that how my great Mumbai city was built? I felt hungry for more. Show me maps, give me facts, show me which builder built what, which politician got flak. Show me the reclaimed parts of the city and the bodies of the mill workers buried in those. But instead of delving into the history and the whole skyscraper point of Nariman, the camera chooses to zoom back repeatedly into Anushka Sharma's white tongue and pink tonsils. Focussing on the doomed love story of Johny and Rosie. The wannabe big shot and the mandatory big shit. Ya ya, been there seen that... So I now understood why the Hollywood investment backed out and ran.

But hey, if that's the story Anurag Kashyap wants to tell, so be it. In all fairness, it's been competently told too. Even if it felt like intellectual masturbation that stops just short of an orgasm. Fiddledum, fiddledee. The fly has married the bumblebee. And that penultimate scene when Karan Johar is getting stabbed, but his expression looks like he's having an orgasm... I mean WTF genre is that? Like Dharavi meets Gucci meets Felini accidentally and they all decide to play movie-movie. Then they got so busy back-thumping and bitching about everybody else that they forgot to or maybe, didn't have time to edit out about half an hour of un necessary footage.

Anyway, the point of this write up is that I am shocked at the negative reviews of Bombay Velvet. It's not a great film, but it's NOT a bad film either. It's definitely worth the time and money spent, if you have enough of both to spare.

Like I overheard someone asking at the theatre, "Have some of Anurag's or Karan's enemies tried to sabotage this movie?" has someone actually paid for these mercilessly scathing poor reviews? I mean if a senior journalist can write that the BMC is to blame for the Salman hit and run case!!! Or Jackie Bhagnani's Youngistaan can be sent as India's entry to the Oscars!!! I do believe anything is possible in India. I'm glad I came to see the film anyway. Because even with its flaws, it's still better than 75 per cent of the Hindi films being made these days.