Mumbai, The City of Dreams, they call it. People travel from the little corners of the country to Mumbai carrying only dreams in their eyes which is sometimes coupled with empty pockets. The city’s gullies, are filled with 1.84 crore-starry-eyed people and none of them know for sure who might make it someday. Yet, the hope and faith remains strong in their hearts.
Gully Boy is inspired by the lives of Rappers Divine and Naezy who made it big evolving out of the streets of Dharavi in Mumbai. A story that tells us to never back down, no matter what the circumstances maybe. It is a story about dreams, love, passion and determination driven solely by hard work and persistence while knowing that – Apna Time Aayega!
Murad/Gully Boy (Ranveer Singh), is a college student from Dharavi who loves to write raps but has no confidence in putting it out. He has an orthodox and strict father who abuses his mother both mentally and physically. Murad is in a relationship with Safeena (Alia Bhatt), a medical student who is plain daring and confident in life. He then meets MC Sher/ Shrikant (Siddhant Chaturvedi) a rapper, in his college fest and begins to follow him through social media. Murad writes for Sher at first. Sher sees the potential in him and says, “Tu khud ka likha hua nahi bolega toh main kyu bolu bey?”. They eventually collaborate for a video with Sky/Shweta (Kalki Koechlin), a student at the Berkely Institute of Music. Later on, an interest sparks between Murad and Shweta. Things go downhill when Murad asks Safeena to end what they have had for each other since they were 13 years old. Further, Murad is forced to leave his father house in the chawl with his mother and brother. They have no money, no house and no source of income to survive.
So does Murad follow his dreams when the world is making sure that he never gets a break from reality? How will he know that his love for Safeena is something way beyond what he thought they had? And how will this underdog overcome all these wearying but real life obstacles to achieve a life that is way beyond what a boy from a gully could ever imagine? The massive audience filled in every Mumbai theatre today have already discovered that. Maybe you should too, this weekend!
Discussing a few aspects separately,
Performances: The film was no doubt strong in its storyline but the performances of the cast was that element jisne film pe chaar chand lagaa diye! Ranveer Singh’s handwork for this role is tremendous and very apparent. From his tears, his pain, his awkwardness,his swag to his euphoria, you will feel it all through his marvelous performance in the film. Alia Bhatt had already won our hearts in the trailer with her dialogue, “Apni, Kayki Apni Albina?!” And yes, she will not let you down a single minute in the entire movie. She has this rough and brave way of being that will make every guy go- ‘this is the girl of my dreams!’ To add on, Vijay Raaz has brilliantly performed his bit in the film. This actor must probably have ‘a different fan base’ owing to his excellent performance that will make you truly hate his character which keeps reminding Murad that the reality is, in fact, always bitter. Kalki Koechlin has done complete justice to her role while Siddhant Chaturvedi as Sher will turn the heat up in every scene with his style, dialogue delivery and attitude. The supporting cast consisting of Vijay Varma, Vijay Maurya, Sheeba Chaddha, Amruta Subhash and the others have also given spectacular performances.
Soundtrack: Gully Boy is the first ever musical rap genre movie made in India. Rap is not much looked up to as ‘music’ in our country. Well, rapping does involve swearing, a lot of swag and truly knowing oneself, which would, obviously be frowned upon in a heritage country like India. However, this movie may have just turned the tables! The total music is 46:38 minutes long and all of the songs have been played in the movie. All the tracks were released on 24 January 2018. Now, since the major focus of the movie was the music, a few tracks could have been held back till the movie was released. A lot of the movie was let out in releasing all the tracks in advance which could have been avoided. Nevertheless, nothing compares the exhilaration of watching these energy packed music videos in the theatre. Even though the audience knew all the songs and in fact, even sang along with the track when it was being played in the movie, the energy and vibe was incomparable to anything that you might feel elsewhere. Kudos to Spitfire, Divine, Naezy, Sez on the Beat, Midival Punditz, Karsh Kale, Raghu Dixit, Dub Sharma, Chandrashekhar Kunder, Jasleen Royal, Arjun Chandy, Ankur Tewari, Karsh Kale, Kaam Bhaari, Mickey McCleary, IshQ Bector, Prem, Hardeep and Viveick Rajagopalan for creating such inspiring, zealous and indefatigable music!
Hands down, the movie has the most relatable dialogues you will find in Indian Cinema, especially if you reside in Mumbai. Vijay Maurya has done an extremely well job of drilling these ‘swag se bhare’ dialogues into our heads.
Jay Oza has shown us a raw Mumbai through his beautiful cinematography. He has added some truly soulful shots of people in the movie that makes us look at them from a different perspective…and of course, the evergreen Marine Drive shot from the taxi.
The writing by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti is on point. Be it the story or the screenplay, no complaints here either!
In conclusion, this film is going to make you want to leave your 9-5 horrid job and will inspire you to follow your passion.
It really doesn’t matter where you come from, because at the end what matters is only what you make of yourself.
TRS rates Gully Boy with 4 chirps.
Cheers to the unsubdued and triumphant champions of life – Divine and Naezy!
