Movie Review: Gully Boy
Nearly ten years later after its release, the cooler version of “Slumdog Millionaire” is finally here. Additionally, the audience gets to see a growing hip-hop scene at perhaps an unexpected place in the world.
(Warning: no spoilers ahead!)
It is hard to put to words what Bollywood film Gully Boy is about and what is to be expected. To begin with, it stars Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, with an impressive supporting cast, so expect the acting to be phenomenal. You see another story of the Mumbai-Bombay slums, another Muslim-dominated setting, but this time, you see a seemingly normal working-class youth somehow make it as a Hindi-spitting rapper. The release of the movie also coincides with a terrible terror attack in Kashmir, with many Indians now finding liberty to say terribly bigoted things about Muslims and Pakistanis on the internet and perhaps even on live television. All the while, Gully Boy is a reminder that India too, has a significant Muslim population (not ethnically or genetically much different from Pakistanis), often inconvenienced but existing in their own world or country of sorts. Yet not once, does the story feel as unrealistic as what you see in Slumdog Millionaire (which earns a negative reference in this film), nor…
