Gully Boy Review

Ranveer Singh had a superb 2018 with two back to back blockbuster movies and has followed them up with Gully Boy. While the previous two movies were made on a huge scale this one is small in economic terms. But in no way is it smaller in execution.

Gully Boy is a simple movie about a slum boy who tries to achieve his dreams inspite of all the odds and difficulties faced by him. The story is presented in a simple way like in all Zoya Akhtar movies. Here the characters take centre stage instead of the situations or the other elements of the movie. The movie moves at a steady pace which at times seems a bit slow and one may feel that not much is happening in the first half to take the movie forward. The movie does pick up in the second half with the story truly moving ahead. All the main and side characters have been written beautifully and this keeps you engrossed with the movie's characters and what they are going through. Better editing could have certainly made the movie crisper, but this is the style in which Zoya Akhtar presents her stories and we are used to it. But the smoothness with which all characters and situations are handled makes the up for the slowness of the movie. This movie is about rap and it is certainly the songs that are the best elements of this movie. The lyrics are really well written and help in giving a deeper meaning to the movie because of which the audience ends up liking the rap songs. Remove the songs and the movie looses much of its meaning because most of the character's anguish is conveyed through the rap songs. This is how it should be for a movie about music and songs.

Ranveer Singh is developing into a fine actor and has done a fab job in this movie. He has really aced all the emotions of the character and deserves all the credit. Alia Bhatt is perfect in her role but has a relatively small part. Even in this smaller role she has shined through which tells you a lot about her as an actor along with the good writing. Sidhant Chaturvedi is very good as MC Sher and Vijay Raaz is perfect as the father who does not want his son to become a rapper. Kalki Koechlin is good in her small role and Vijay Verma in supporting role as Ranveer's friend is superb. The acting in this movie has really been helped by good writing as you are able to notice the importance each of the character brings to the movie. Thus along with praising the acting, the writing too needs to be praised.

Zoya Akhtar is turning into a fab director and is really defining the kind of cinema that she makes. She has done full justice to the movie as a director which shows in both how the actors have performed and how the movie has been presented.

Overall this is a movie to be seen by everyone who want to watch a movie with engaging characters and engaging songs. So go ahead and watch this beautifully made movie.

Rating - 3.5 / 5