Gully Boy Review

I am personally not a very big fan of Raveer singh. I felt like his best acting was in Dil dhadak Ne Do. Now the same team has come out with Gully Boy and although I know exactly ZERO about Hip-Hop, rap and such things, I decided to see this film first day first show.

For me Zoya Akhtar as a film maker has never disappointed and the same is true for this film. She has a way of making films, which at the time don’t seem too long but are actually over 2 and half hours easily.

Direction & Story:

As already mentioned Zoya Akhtar is a fantastic director. In most of her films the theme is ‘aspiration to be better than your surroundings’. Right from Luck by chance to Gully Boy all her films share this theme. Rich or poor, characters in her film are stuck in life and bogged down by the limitations set up by their surroundings. So this is a theme she is a master at and Gully boy is her most underdog story yet. Until now most of her stories had financially rich but emotionally handicapped characters. However, in this film, Ranveer singh plays a character who lives in Dharavi and is poor. He believes, ‘apna time ayega’ he sits and writes down in frustration.

The transition from portraying upper class rich folk to really poor folk is often botched up by Bollywood. It just doesn’t look or feel real. It’s often not gritty enough. Zoya and writer Reema Kagti manage to side step this pitfall and create some VERY realistic and believable people inhabiting the slums of Dharavi. Not a single person breaks this illusion of how it is to lead that life.

This is the biggest win for this film. It seems, rather it portrays the subject very authentically. There is a sincerity behind the effort to get to the heart of this story.

Acting :

Ranveer Singh gives his career best performance in the film. He is extremely believable as Murad. He is not over the top like his other films and keeps himself grounded for the whole film. Alia bhatt is probably the best actress of her generation, she manages to portray all the nuances of her character without it becoming unbelievable. She is not shown as likable but still she is perfect for Ranveer’s Murad.

The breakout mention here is for newcomer Siddhant Chaturvedi. It’s his first film and he manages to upstage Ranveer at times. It’s not an accident. He is playing a sort of mentor to Ranveer and his upstaging of Murad is a plot requirement. No Bollywood egos to be seen where Ranveer would ask for less scenes of Siddhant or to cut the scene where he upstages him.

Rest of the cast including Vijay Raaz as the stern father are played perfectly by the actors.

Cinematography:

‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ had some of the best cinematography I had seen till that point in a Bollywood film. Gully boy doesn’t exceed that, but it keeps the track record of rather well done camera moves and excellent blocking.

While this is not something normal audience notice, it does affect them on how they are seeing a scene and its mood. The beginning of the film is shot in primarily close ups to show how suffocating life is for the characters. Slowly the frames start to expand and you get to see far shots of locales and characters. Portraying their sense of freedom.

Film making is not a based on one thing alone, everything has to come together. Films can have great story but can also be shot badly. This film works on every level. The story is adequate, the visuals very effective and the music… how can we NOT talk about the music?

Music & Soundtrack :

I have already admitted that Rap & hip Hop is not my genre and I do not understand this type of music at all. Having said that, the soundtrack of Gully Boy was awesome. Right from the first song, the music, the lyrics the rap all worked for me. The way the first song is picturized is very international and kudos to the film makers for making a music video which lives up to high standards without being all Bollywood and dance numbers.

The best musical films make a certain way of going about with their songs. They start with the most average song first and the graph picks up from there. Think for a minute about Taal. That film had a lot of good songs, but the graph keeps going up. (Talking about Taal)The first 2 songs are decent, then the Mumbai based songs are even better and finally the song for the finale is epic.

The same applies for Gully Boy. In a properly done film, the end track should leave you on your feet cheering. If they had not managed that, to make the final song the best one yet, then this film would have fallen flat (Example ABCD).

But the last song ‘Apna Time Ayega’ is a huge crowd pleaser without being over the top.

Overall :

On the topic of over the top, this film never leaves its boundaries of its setting and never goes ballistic trying to show the Gully Boy becoming world famous. Maybe they are planning on a sequel, but for this story, things are kept grounded in a way that is believable without being boring.

The movie is sort of predictable and nothing happens which is super surprising, but that is not the type of film this is going for. This is not a thriller, it’s a simple aspirational film, done perfectly.

Rating :

8/10. For me this is a must watch for its amazing music, great cinematography, good direction and overall just a very well made film.

P.S : I recently saw 8 mile as a comparison before seeing Gully boy. For once Bollywood out does Hollywood by miles (pun intended). Gully Boy is the film 8 miles wishes it were. There is nothing similar in the two films whatsoever. People speculating that this is just a bad copy of 8 mile, eat your heart out… this film far surpasses 8 mile and is probably one of the best musical aspirational underdog films ever made.