I don't know how to start my review.. Seriously, I thought of starting like "Damn good work, man!!", but I don't know what to write.. Mahesh Manjarekar is one with enormous talents, really!! What a movie, man!! Each character has got depth, brilliant performances, apt lighting, and a tight screenplay. The only drawback to say is that, the movie seems a little bit dramatic at places. Otherwise, the movie deserves 10/10.Set in the Mumbai of the 1980s, the movie deals with the mill workers' life , who made the city into what it is now. The movie is executed brilliantly, damn good!! Mr Manjarekar should direct more movies, we miss your talent, sir!! The casting is perfect, the performances are very good, Many people are newcomers, I guess from the theatre background. The guys performed well, Siddharth Jadhav was awesome as Speedbreaker. The girl who played Manju was awesome. Seema Biswas is just a WoWWW!!! Excellent performance. Sachin Khedekar was good. Satish Kaushik's role was very good. Kashmira Shah has got a meatier role to perform this time, and she proves that she can do well in terms of acting also. The rest of the cast was good, the ad-wala guy who played Jignesh was good.No scope for the music, except for a semi-item song in Marathi, during the credits. On the whole, Mahesh Manjarekar is a talented director, and he proves it once again in this movie. Very well made movie, watch it!!!

The movie is okay but good in parts.The performance from Siddharth Jadhav (Speed-Breaker) and Seema Biswas are brilliant and make the movie worth watching.The movie does divert from the main subject though and end up as a family drama. But still tells the tale of Bombay (now Mumbai). Some of the scenes are perfectly shot to create the old era of now the "City of Gold".A couple of scenes after the logical ending were unnecessary and spoils the tone of the movie. Mahesh Manjerakar's rap in the end was a welcome surprise. The wording was also good.A worth watch!

I saw the movie after i read the review on IMDb. and moreover i was waiting to watch this movie... so finally i saw this movie and i kind of disagree with the above review.. i agree that it was about only a family.. but it was a family of mill workers.. i think this movie revolves around the mill workers and a story told well about the past.. Now everyone cannot be James Cameron.. to make AVATAr after TITANIC and beat his own record.. Life in MUMBAI remains the same for all stories.. that city is out of this world... even if 'Johnny Depp' had to make 'shantaram'. i am sure it would have had most of the same thing... now one cant predict anything different from a story about MUMBAI... The characters played fairly a decent role to bring about the feelings and behaviors of the then mill workers'. It is simply a story of how the poor mill workers where cheated to bring about the consumerism to make money.. at the end those people suffered and most of the people from MUMBAI, enjoy it today...whatever... IT IS A STORY WELL TOLD..

Vaastav still remains Mahesh Manjrekar's biggest hit till date - City of Gold was not even half of what Vaastav was. I was so excited to see this movie however it turned out to be one of the biggest disappointment of the year. The hype behind the movie was an untold story and the director's name but to tell you the truth - the core message of the movie that should have been was lost between a family's problems in poverty. The mill-workers that it is supposed to be based upon were only seen as poor people and any other mumbai-based slum movie would have shown what it did. Many of the actors were look-alikes e.g. Naru (character name) resembled R Madhavan and his brother resembled another TV actor which made this a little on the funnier side. Some tragedy scenes were done so tragically that it turned out to be funnier at times.Bad acting, bad screenplay, nothing new - just not worth the time and money. After having seen Vaastav and Satya (by RGV) this movie falls flat.