My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves

Rohit Shetty's *My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves* attempts to straddle the line between coming-of-age drama and crime thriller, but stumbles awkwardly in the middle, unable to commit fully to either. The film's central conceit—a mentor figure shielding his protégé from a criminal underworld while the boy pursues legitimate dreams—carries potential, yet the execution feels scattered and emotionally hollow. The performances lack the gravitas needed to sell the tragic irony at the story's core; neither the mentor-mentee dynamic nor the budding romance between Anthony and Riya generates genuine investment, despite the familiar Bollywood chemistry-building we've seen executed far more effectively in films like *Dil Chahta Hai* or even *Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara*. The screenplay prioritizes plot mechanics over character development, leaving us with archetypes rather than flesh-and-blood people.

What particularly disappoints is how superficially the film engages with its most compelling element: the collision between Anthony's innocent Bollywood aspirations and Sikander's violent reality. The Shakespeare-inspired casting—Anthony playing Mark Antony in a Julius Caesar adaptation—feels like a heavy-handed literary flourish that never coheres thematically with the narrative. The deception about his father's profession, too, registers as a narrative afterthought rather than a meaningful exploration of identity and class anxiety. Direction-wise, the film lacks distinctive vision; it moves th