The most significant deleted sequences revolve around character depth. The theatrical version reduces Ranbir Kapoor’s street-fighter-turned-jazz-club-owner, Johnny Balraj, to a lovesick pawn. Deleted scenes, however, reportedly contained an extended prologue showing Balraj’s brutal childhood in the Bombay slums and his first, formative encounter with Karan Johar’s chillingly charismatic crime lord, Kaizad Khambatta. Without this prologue, Balraj’s climactic descent into violence lacks tragic weight.

The original cut featured an extensive prologue showing Johnny (Ranbir Kapoor) and Rosie (Anushka Sharma) as children. Removing this meant the audience lost the foundation for their bond, making their adult romance feel rushed and less impactful.

: Earlier versions of the film contained more explicit violence and abusive language that were toned down to satisfy the revising committee.

The most significant deleted footage is an 18-minute opening sequence that was chopped off before release to tighten the runtime.

For a film that originally clocked in at 149 minutes (already a demanding runtime for audiences), the director’s cut was reportedly much longer—rumored to be over three hours. The excised footage, glimpsed only in trailers, promotional stills, and whispered festival anecdotes, suggests a very different, and perhaps superior, film was left on the cutting room floor.