Like the elder Kapoor in such films as Awaara and Shree 420, Ranbir plays an underdog battling the system.

Hes Johnny Balraj, a petty gangster who doesnt mind taking a pounding or doling one out.

Johnny runs a nightclub and longs for a piece of the real-estate pie that is Bombay in 1969, a city on the cusp of (over)development.

The director Anurag Kashyaps cinematic touchstones dont end with Raj Kapoor.

James Cagney shows up, too; Johnny watches The Roaring Twenties, with Cagney dying on snowy steps as a blonde intones, He used to be a big shot.

Which is to say that Bombay Velvet (great title) is more about movies than it is about gangsters.

Mr. Kashyaps restless camera likes the look of rain on windshields and tommy guns, Art Deco nightclubs and girl singers with beehive dos.

For much of its first half, Bombay Velvet hums with the kind of energy found in movies by the 1970s American directors Mr.

Kashyap seems to admire.

Martin Scorsese is thanked in the head credits.) Mr.

Kashyap is perhaps too faithful to his Bollywood imperatives, though.

In the grand tradition, his film is overlong (149 minutes) and overplotted.

Its hard to keep track of all the dirty deals and dirty dealers carving up Bombay.) And just when you expect it to explode some of the clichs it reinvigorates, it embraces them instead.

Still, as one fast operator tells our hero, The map of Bombay is being redrawn, Johnny.

Even with its faults, Mr.

Kashyaps film is more evidence that the map of Bollywood is, too.

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