Gully Boy
Year: 2019
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Vijay Verma, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin

Story:

This story of a Dharavi slum-boy lighting up the city’s underground hip-hop music scene with the help of a fellow young rapper is inspired by Mumbai-based rap singers Naezy (Naved Sheikh) and Divine (Vivian Fernandes). Drawing from these real-life stories, Reema Kagti brilliantly pieces together a screenplay to create a moving, uplifting story with so many memorable characters and scenes.

Direction:

Zoya Akhtar has already established herself as a fine director who knows how to tell an insightful entertaining story with multiple interesting characters. Here, too she once again shows complete mastery on the story-telling, keeping viewers riveted to the goings-on on the screen, eschewing manipulative melodrama and keeping it subtle and straight from heart.

Her past themes like a man trying to make his mark in the entertainment industry (Luck By Chance), chasing dreams without fear (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) and dysfunctional families (Dil Dhadakne Do) come together in Gully Boy; but here she leaves aside the high society glitter and explores the city’s dark underbelly.

She unveils the whole hip-hop music angle as a subtle social commentary on the worlds of haves and have-nots. Here music serves as an angry outpouring against the personal frustrations, social injustice and political manipulations. Here music offers salvation and success to the under-privileged and the vulnerable.

The way in which Zoya captures the multiple relationships is amazing. The lead characters, their romances, their family dynamics, their class struggles- she captures so many shades of human interactions. Barring the occasional moving in circles, the film does almost everything right!

Acting:

Ranveer Singh, despite his fan following and past lauded performances, has always seemed to me as someone who overdoes it a notch. Here he gets everything perfect as the Dharavi-slum-based youngster who is suppressed at home, awkward with his girl-friend, swayed into petty crimes by his slum-friends and expressing his anger and frustration through his music. His look, body language, dialogue delivery and rap singing together makes him the real Gully Boy in every sense!

As his possessive, feisty girl-friend Alia Bhatt delivers yet another dazzling performance. This girl is without a doubt the best actress in Bollywood right now. Her spontaneity is unbelievable.

Siddhant Chaturvedi playing the hero’s rap mentor and Vijay Verma portraying the drug-peddling car-stealing friend are two other superb portrayals worth the special mention. The rest of the cast, too, leaves an indelible mark with natural performances.

Music:

As a person raised on and totally adoring the classic Hindi film music of the 50s-70s, I never thought I would be swept away by some Hindi Hip- Hop but I was totally wrong. For the first time in years, the songs of the film stayed in mind and I kept playing them on loop! The angst, the authentic street lingo and the infectious beat – everything gels together so well in all these numbers. The reason that they make such an impression is because they do not seem ‘foreign’ or ‘fake’ pretenders but very much from the Indian soil, talking common man’s language about real issues!

Verdict

For me, Gully Boy has been a true revelation. It is a movie that I watched with every expectation of coming out non-plussed. It is a movie whose songs I never imagined to be on my playlist. It is a movie whose leading man was not at all in my favourites. But despite all my prejudices and reservations, this movie moved me, entertained me, enraptured me and converted me. Very few movies have done that before.

Gully Boy is an absolute winner! To compliment it in its own endearing street lingo, ‘Bhai…..toD phoD…..bahut hard hai bhai…..bahut hard’!

Rating

4.5 stars