After Tenali Ramakrishna BA. BL, hero Sundeep Kishan and director G Nageshwar Reddy joined forces for a commercial entertainer titled, Gully Rowdy. Co-starring Rajendra Prasad and Bobby Simha in key roles, the film has hit the screens today. Let’s see how it fares.
Story: To regain the lost family name in their locality, Vasu’s( Sundeep Kishan) grandfather raises him as a Gully Rowdy. True to his grandfather’s trust, Vasu emerges as a notable rowdy in Vizag city and this is the time a person named Venkat Roa( Rajendra Prasad) approaches Vasu through the heroine ( Neha Shetty) to bail out his property from local goons. Then enters a criminal cop named Raghu Naik ( Bobby Simha) into the scene and lock horns with Sundeep Kishan to grab Venkat Rao’s property. How will Vasu with the help of Venkat Rao’s family face Raghu Naik? To know that, you have to watch the film in the theatres near you.
Performances: Undoubtedly, Sundeep Kishan the lead actor is the show-stealer. Though a few elevation scenes look over the top, overall he pulls off the film with his energetic performance. Heroine Neha Shetty is charming and gave a decent performance. Her on-screen chemistry with Sundeep Kishan is captivating.
Actor Bobby Simha gets a throughout character as a bad cop but due to the poorly designed character, it fails to create any impact. The face-off scenes between Sundeep Kishan and Bobby Simha are not executed in an effective manner.
Other actors like Rajendra Prasad, Viva Harsha, Posani Krishna Murali are okay in their roles. But Vennela Kishore’s comedy track is a major disappointment as it hardly generates fun.
Technicalities: Music by Ram Miriyala and Sai Kartheek is okay as audio songs are good. The background score is decent but could have been better.
The cinematography by Sujatha Siddharth is adequate as he tried to explore the locations in and around Vizag city nicely.
Chota K Prasad’s editing work is not up to the mark as close to ten minutes of the film can be easily chopped off. Production values for this limited budget movie are decent.
Analysis: Director G Nageshwar Reddy, who is widely known as the comedy entertainers specialist is the director for Gully Rowdy. As the film is the second outing from the actor-director after the 2019 film, Tenali Ramakrishna BA.BL, the audience expected a sure shot hit from the duo this time but the director disappoints with routine template scenes and formulaic narration.
Though the pre-interval to interval episode that prominently focuses on the kidnap drama was executed decently by incorporating fun elements, the latter half of the movie turns into a serious drama with unwanted twists and turns. If Nageshwar Reddy would have focused on writing a better screenplay during the second half proceedings by continuing the kidnap drama thread, the result would have been surely better.
To summerize, Gully Rowdy is a formulaic entertainer that suffers from an unengaging screenplay and outdated presentation. Though a few fun episodes evoke healthy laughs, lack of consistency in the pace and poor writing stand tall as the demerits for Gully Rowdy.
Verdict: Outdated Entertainer!
Rating: 2/5