Z
oya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, inspired by the slums-to-riches journey of gully rappers Divine and Naezy, released its trailer today and made one thing crystal clear: If there’s ever yet another sequel to Singh is Kinng, it’s Ranveer Singh’s for the taking. Last year, Singh – a Bollywood A-lister if ever there was one – opened and ended the year with two excellent performances, which also happened to be box-office hits. In fact, it was his performance that made it impossible to not hold the two films to the same extraordinary standard.
In Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat, Singh essayed Allauddin Khilji, creating an unhinged invader so unwavering about his own inhumanity, it tricked the audience into empathising with him, rather than the film’s milquetoast hero played by Shahid Kapoor. And in last month’s problematic Simmba, Singh, who played a boisterous cop, elevated the Rohit Shetty universe several notches.
And yet, disparate as they are, both these performances share a common thread – Khilji and Simmba are characters borne out of the excess that Singh embodies. In the last couple of years, a majority of Singh’s commercially acclaimed films have him mainstreaming this kind of behaviour that, in millennial-speak, is labelled “extra”. The same sort of OTT-ness that defined the Govinda era – but was still considered a speciality. Think about it: Bittu from Band Baaja Baaraat, Ram from Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela, or even Kabir Mehra from Dil Dhadakne Do are characters who benefit from Ranveer Singh’s natural exuberance and larger-than-life idiosyncrasies.
And yet, Singh’s most evocative performance has been as Varun Shrivastav, a thief moonlighting as a poetic lover in the criminally underrated Lootera.
The Gully Boy trailer shows great promise. Excel Entertainment
