Bohemian rap study
The first time we see Ranveer Singh in Gully Boy, he’s stealing a car. Tentative and preoccupied, he brings up the rear, having sought out the least active role. His name is Murad, and that is his way. A college kid obsessed with hiphop, he writes songs hoping a proper performer will belt out his rhymes. The performer disagrees, encouraging him to do what is hard. “If we get comfortable,” he asks Murad, “who the hell will rap?”
Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, a rousing underdog story about India’s emerging hip-hop subculture, is the first great Hindi film of 2019. Characters without room to breathe express themselves breathlessly, through a style of music that belongs to the marginalised. Dissent finds a way, and a beat.
How does one rapper-to-be find another, though? Painting graffiti, Murad accurately scrawls ‘Internet’ alongside ‘Roti, Kapda, Makaan’ as an essential. He sends a Facebook friend request to a performer, and finds a musician via comments under a YouTube video. He’s nervous asking to meet up, incredulous about suggesting it “directly”. The behaviour is as excited, as hesitant, as courting.
There is nothing hesitant about Murad’s girlfriend. Played by an electric Alia Bhatt, Safeena is an incurable hothead — he nicknames her ‘Danger Aapa’ — who tells her man to go ahead and dream. She’s going to be a doctor, so they’re going to be just fine. This is reassurance Murad sorely needs, living in a tiny Dharavi home occasionally beset by tourists. Murad and Safeena are practising Muslims, childhood sweethearts sundered by wealth and class.
The film opens with a dedication to pioneering Indian hip-hop stars Naezy and Divine, with Akhtar and co-writer Reema Kagti borrowing background and specifics from their lives. Local rappers show up, cameoing as themselves. Yet Gully Boy doesn’t delve into the music, into its appeal to our hungry youngsters, or into what makes this subculture special.
Instead, the writers studiously follow the graph of a sports drama, taking as much from the Rocky template as from Eminem’s screen memoir, 8 Mile. It’s smart to keep the beat basic and buoyant — if repetitive — and to make sure the energy is full-tilt and familiar. The prizefighter template is appropriate. Who was the first rap battler in the world? Mohammad Ali.
The knockout punches come from MC Sher. His name means tiger and poem, and he’s played by Siddhant Chaturvedi with a natural, easy ferocity. It’s the film’s top performance. Sher leans hard into the verses and the artfully effortless attitude, and mentors Murad, dubbing him ‘Gully Boy’ and schooling him in the all-important ways of metre.
Written by Vijay Maurya — who also plays Murad’s uncle — the superb dialogue allow us a ringside view. The genius lies in how the lines evolve; late in the film, when Murad is raging against his father, you can sense metre in his words. He’s internalised the iambic.
Cinematographer Jay Oza presents the city in wide shots, while framing faces mercilessly close, exposing the actors at their rawest. Bhatt is a marvel, all fury, focus and fearlessness. Vijay Varma is superb as a crook bred on Jackie Shroff movies, while the remarkable Vijay Raaz is haunting as Murad’s bitter, unambitious father.
Armed with microphones and words, Singh is unstoppable. From accent to action, he nails it. As Murad becomes more confident, he even closes a curtain like he’s dropping a mic. At one point, Safeena, desperate to cheer for Murad, shouts mid-song while the rest of the crowd, aware of the style, holds their applause. Akhtar has done something special. Gully Boy starts with a scratch sound and ends with a cut to silence, and in between holds voices that cannot be unheard. Like Safeena, applaud whenever you’re ready. It’s time.