Gully Rowdy

Story: A small-time rowdy wants to make it big and fulfil his grandfather’s wish by helping out a professional rowdy with a land issue. A cop takes up a murder case and is on the look-out for the accused. What happens to the Gully Rowdy and his clan forms the tale.

Review: The commercial cinema template in Tollywood is tried and tested, often a safe space for actors and filmmakers to tell their stories. And if the screenplay is by Kona Venkat, you can be assured he’ll pack the film with enough characters that you don’t have time to think. But does that make Gully Rowdy worth watching?

Vasu is the titular ‘gully rowdy’ from Vizag whose grandfather hopes he becomes well-known in the crime world someday. He takes up an assessment to ‘qualify’ as a ‘professional rowdy’ where he is supposed to help Venkata Rao (Rajendra Prasad) with a piece of land. When dealing with the land issue, Vasu doesn’t just fall in love with Venkata Rao’s daughter Sahitya (Neha Shetty) the motley crew also find themselves involved in murder. CI Raghu Naik (Bobby Simha) takes up the case and Vasu does all he can to escape the clutches of law.

The comedy tracks involving numerous characters might tickle the fancy of those who don’t expect too much from the jokes. The outdated romantic track involving Vasu and Sahitya keeps cropping up at inopportune times through the film and doesn’t help in boosting the flimsy plot. Few fight scenes are composed well and credit here goes to Sundeep Kishan for pulling them off.

One expects things to pick up when Raghu Naik enters the scene but the outdatedness continues and you keep feeling déjà vu with several scenes. When Changure Item Songree – a typical special number – offers relief from the numerous hype shots and comedy tracks, you know there’s nothing much here. Characters enter and exit the frame with no rhyme and nothing really surprises you, even when the ‘twist’ is twisted numerous times. After a point, even Vasu becomes just another character once Raghu enters the scene. The numerous variations of ‘mukkalu mukkalu ga narikesta’ warnings and fights are barely watchable.

Sundeep Kishan looked buff and as an actor, he has improved a lot. He just happens to find himself in an outdated script. He deserves accolades for performing the action sequences with ease. Neha Shetty doesn’t get the scope to perform and exists just to romance the hero. Bobby Simha pulls off the badass cop role with ease and delivers a good performance. Actors like Rajendra Prasad, Posani Murali Krishna and Nagineedu breeze through.

It’s 2021 and while no one expected Gully Rowdy to break the mould, the least one expects is freshness in dialogues and characters. The film is a passable watch.