Essentially a period noir crime drama revolving around the love story between a street-fighter (Ranbir Kapoor) and a jazz singer (Anushka Sharma), Bombay Velvet looks like it's a brave attempt to think outside the box, but from its first look trailer, sadly, it looks like this Anurag Kashyap helmed film will most likely NOT be able to pull it off, because my first reaction after seeing it was this:

Bombay Velvet is an important film for several reasons. Firstly, because of its budget which went overboard during production making its box office success somehwat more of a challenge, and secondly, for Ranbir Kapoor who hasn’t been seen for nearly two years except for a stray appearance in a stinker called Roy and a cameo in the Aamir Khan blockbuster PK.

The film also sees him with Anushka Sharma, who’s on a roll after the back to back successs PK and NH10, for the first time and marks Karan Johar’s official debut as an actor in a film which sees him as the prime antagonist.

But. And I hate to say this. I echo the sentiments of a few of the tweets I read on my timeline over the past 24 hours and that is: that the trailer sucks. Big time.

Yes that’s right. The trailer of a film from a production house that made gems like Lootera and Queen, makes no sense whatsoever and is so vague and off beat, that it builds no anticipation for the film and is a huge fail for everyone concerned in making it.

Ranbir’s character and quirky look raises some curiosity and Anushka looks like she’s pulled off her unconventional part with aplomb, but besides that, nothing did it for me I'm afraid which is a bit of a bloody shame. I still have some hopes from it despite it's tepid first look though, so here's hoping that they brush up on it in the next trailer – I mean they have time, the film isn’t due for another two months at least.

And as for Karan Johar’s much touted debut (stray cameo in DDLJ notwithstanding), this tweet summed up my thoughts rather well:

Bombay Velvet also features Kay Kay Menon, Manish Choudhary, Siddhartha Basu, Remo Fernandes and Raveena Tandon in a cameo and hits theatres 18 May. Are you looking forward to the film? Let us know below.