Gully Boy Review

Gully boy Review
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Vijay Raaz
Director: Zoya Akhtar

Gully Boy Movie Poster

One of the most awaited films of 2019 fulfilled its massive expectations with a mic drop to all the doubters. Zoya Akhtar with her past successes comes back and delivers. Armed with the versatility of Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh and we could already foresee that this was going to be an artistic gem like no other. Ranveer Singh after his success of Simbba and Padmavat, returns in top form and really gels into the underbelly of Mumbai which is Dharavi.  He leaves no stone unturned in portraying the innocent but aware Murad. He Raps with grit and passion. His spiteful girlfriend Safeena played effortlessly by Alia Bhatt makes us laugh and cry with and at her loving and possessive nature towards Murad. She shows her explosive temper and affection for Murad by assaulting two women who dare to look at him. However, she is not just a hopeless romantic. She is firm on her dreams and decisions which she solidifies in the dialogue, " I want to be a surgeon and I want to marry you ", she's sure on fulfilling those dreams in that order. Siddhant Chaturvedi plays MC Sher, Murad's pal and guru with pure confidence and delivers a resounding debut. Kalki Koechlin plays the string free Sky who comes out of nowhere and offers to help Murad and Sher. The screenplay of the movie is amazing, Zoya Akhtar with frequent collaborator Reema Kagti deliver a hard-hitting script with dialogues written by  Vijay Maurya. The Cinematography by Jay Oza captures the hustle bustle of Mumbai beautifully and doesn't shy away from showing the claustrophobic gully's of Dharavi as they are. A movie about a rapper must have a poetic soundtrack and boy, do they deliver. ' Apna time aayega ' and ' Azadi ' capture the angst but mellow tracks such as ' Jaha tu chala ' also portray the soft side of the movie. However, gully boy suffers because of its too easy to notice similarities with the Hollywood movie ' 8 miles '.  The storyline, however, is not brand new and it tells 'rags to riches story ' told way too many times before. Overall, I will give Gully Boy a 4/5 with its amazing soundtrack, emotional Cinematography, impactful screenplay, explosive direction and amazing performances all around.