(#76) Gully Boy (2019) - [8.75/10]
Updated: Jun 7, 2019
Murad discovers Mumbai's rap scene and invests his life into by compromising his hard street life.
How would I describe this film in one word?
Unexpected.
Note
Went into this movie not expecting anything. ANYTHING. Nothing at all. Cause I know it's a film about rap, which I don't like all that much. I know it's a film starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt whom I presumed only acted in mainstream Bollywood movies - which I hate and find cringey and annoying. But... I loved this movie! You may be surprised that I didn't phrase it as "I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!" after seeing my rating for it. But it isn't that kind of movie which I go crazy over and express my adoration for it with capitalized letters and infinite exclamation marks. I just know that I really liked it and it was a league above many of the movies I rated highly so far.
Review
The story is about Murad, a boy from the streets of Mumbai - hence the title 'Gully Boy'. Murad loves rap and gets invested into the rap lifestyle in Mumbai. He finds himself juggling between his newfound passion, college studies, part-time work life, his love life and a pressuring home - a home with a strict father who disapproves of his hobby. They do a good job of balancing all the hustle of his day-to-day life to show the hard life he has to lead in the streets of Mumbai to get somewhere. The movie never made you look at your watch and made sure you were constantly glued into the story which is so enthralling. Unlike other movies, it didn't just focus on the physical or explicit hardships of a street boy, but also the mental and psychological hardships of one - which I found to be the true highlight of the show. There is one line in the movie where Murad says in response to his father, "I won't let my dreams match my reality, but I will change my reality to match my dreams" which I found to be really powerful and it gave me an insight into the message the filmmakers behind the movie tried to convey. Besides the movies very obvious social message (which is nice though), the entertainment all came from the movie's songs or more specifically, its rap sequences which made the movie look very out-of-place in the sense that it didn't look like a Bollywood music sequence but a genuine rap music sequence. That made me appreciate the direction even more. And not just the music's visuals, but the raps in itself had a punch to it which was really exciting and it certainly gave me one of the bounce-on-your-chair vibes that you can only get while listening to rap and beat-boxing. It was tense too especially the scenes with the father and towards the end, the movie had an amazing feel-good vibe which I loved. Coming to the actors, I was really surprised with Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt especially. This is the first film I've seen of Ranveer's and second of Alia's and I'm surprised that they are actually good. I've seen quite a few Bollywood movies before and I thought that these two actors belonged to the category of actors who got there for the looks and didn't act that well, or over-acts (like Shah Rukh Khan) or has only one distinguishable style (like Salman Khan), but I was wrong, they were really good. Ranveer never over-acted in scenes where your typical Indian actor would be tempted too and he also stayed true to his character. Another one who stayed true to her character was Alia Bhatt who was fierce in this movie. Their chemistry really worked well here. So we have come to the conclusion that this isn't your typical Bollywood movie but it shares a lot of similar styles though. Maybe this is prime Bollywood. There are other great movies which stand out from the crowd and can be distinguished from a Bollywood film but this movie feels like a mix of a familiar recipe with a brand new intoxicating spice.I may be wrong with the rating, but I know two things for sure; one, I loved it, two, it's a league above my other highly-rated movies.
RATING: 8.75/10
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Rated: PG-12
Runtime: 2 hr 33 min
Genre: Drama, Music
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Siddhant Chaturvedi