“My father advised me not to dream. Dreams never come true. But I saw a dream”, says the deep baritone of Abhishek Bachchan with ’Jaage hain’ track trying its best to make its presence felt through the background. Thus begins the movie with high expectations considering the starcast and the infallible Mani Ratnam.
Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is the son of a teacher belonging to Idhar village in Gujarat. But Guru is a failure at studies and has made big plans to go abroad to work. His father though never believes in the ability of his son. Guru is amazingly ambitious and supremely confident about his abilities. So he joins Shell in Istanbul, Turkey, selling oil cans and does very well in that job to merit a promotion within 3 years. When offered the promotion, Guru refuses saying, “Agar main idhar achcha kaam kar sakta hun to khud ke liye kyon na karu!” (If I can work so well for some foreign company then why not work for myself?). He leaves the job and returns to his village to pursue dreams of setting up his own company.
Guru marries his best friend Jignesh’s sister Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) who is one year elder to him and even though she tried to run away with someone from her village because he will receive a lot of money in dowry from Sujata’s father with which he can start his business. And he also promises to make his best friend-turned-brother in law a partner in his business. So everyone is happy with this deal and the marriage is ritualised!
Guru, Sujata and Jignesh then proceed to Bombay to try their luck which Guru is absolutely sure is going to click. He is supremely confident of making it big in Mumbai. But he faces a slew of obstacles and emerges out of them successfully through plain guts (never is any unethical practice shown which is somehow brought up towards the end!!) which border on foolishness. After a few successes with the help of Gandhian newspaper owner fondly referred to as Nanaji, Guru becomes very confident and starts making rapid strides. Jignesh cannot keep pace and leaves Guru and also takes Sujata with him.
Guru, on the other hand, though is slightly worried about these happenings. But he has reached a point of no-return and continues with completing those large half-strides that he has already taken. He goes for a public issue and creates his own company manufacturing polyester and keeps growing. Somewhere along the way he goes back to his village and brings Sujata back home.
Guru finally reaches a stage where he begins using the media and others to achieve more success. Nanaji suddenly (another point of concern here is that, the war cries are let out on what the audience sees as something harmless) realises this is where their roads clash and resolves to fight Guru to the end. According to Nanaji, Guru has now become a disease of the society that needs to be stopped in his tracks. Shyam Saxena (Madhavan) is nanaji’s protege who believes that people like Guru need to be jailed and the key thrown into the sea. So, the movie builds up to the interval as a fight between Guru and Nanaji (through Shyam) with Guru saying, “Mujhe koi nahi rok sakta. Na aap, na yeh Shyam Saxena, na yeh akbaar!”. (Nobody can stop me. Neither you nor Shyam Saxena or your newspaper!”)
When I got up from my seat during the interval I realized my eyes were aching because the camera had moved so much that it almost had me tired. I was tired of watching those close-ups. In order to avoid covering much of the background because it was a period setting the camera was focussed on close-ups rather than any other beautiful reason that the camera man Rajiv Menon can conjure. And as the timeline approached the 80′s it was relatively safe to take those long shots. I thought the cinematography could have been better. Atleast by Mani’s standards we have seen much better pictures than the work done here. This looks like Mani’s first shot at a period film (A classic called ‘Iruvar’ was also by the same gentleman, ’Guru’ ends during the late 90′s or around that time) and it shows through the cinematography. All that unnecessary slow motion shots during the climax court scene made me feel dizzy. But I should mention that the movie is crystal clear visually - no dots, lines, nothing. Pure digital print I guess.
Coming back to what happened after the interval: The fight between Guru and Nanaji climaxes with the shareholders of Guru’s company questioning his ethics and integrity. Guru lands up in a lawsuit and how he wriggles out of it forms the remaining part of the story. The dialogue in the climax is good and hard-hitting but needed more populist punchlines. The applause that Mani expects to generate in the audience during that scene is obviously missing and that is very embarassing for a movie-maker of Mani’s calibre. A better dialogue writer would have helped, maybe? But the dialogue writer would have helped if Mani had the right concept in the first place. You cannot justify whatever wrong you have done just because your company is held by the public. That isn’t Mani, but offlate (‘Bombay’ for instance) Mani has been resorting to endings that are politically correct and incoherent with the cinema he is trying to make. I thought Guru would have been better if he had potrayed Guru as someone who is unabashedly open about whatever he has done is for himself. Instead of using his shareholder base as a reason for doing so many wrongs.
Frankly, I was not impressed with the movie at all. A typical rags to riches story is what we all knew it was about. But then with Mani Ratnam wielding the microphone you expected better stuff. Alas! Mani misses the bus! The execution of the story lacks conviction and is too unbelievably fantasy-like. And the ending lets you down so much you actually walk out of the theatre wanting to know how the jury decided to acquit Guru after having a 30 secs chat that resembled the coffee-vending machine chats at any software company!
For starters, nobody understands the concept of ‘shout and trade market’ unless they have been through a similar experience somewhere before. So, for most part of it you don’t understand what is going on when Guru tries to get the ‘market’ opened after it’s closed down for apparent gambling. Nanaji seems to have just come along wanting to meet an angry chap on the road during his morning walk. His taking of a sudden interest in Guru’s case makes for a no-brainer to me atleast! And instantly the very next day he publishes a story about the closed boundaries of Mumbai’s trading market – I mean Rupert Murdoch would be proud of his ability to respond so quickly to an angry and shouting stranger’s case.
Sujata’s character could have been developed further in an intelligent fashion. She is reduced to cooking and household chores throughout the movie but in the end she becomes a 50% shareholder in Guru’s company and a promoter too! Voila! Wonder what the remaining 30 lakh shareholders were thinking! Come to think of it, the jury raises this issue without going through the company’s annual reports and articles of memorandum of assoication? That just goes to show how utterly under-prepared the jury is to handle the case. But I should mention that I was impressed with Roshan Seth. Good, subtle brand of acting.
Whatever Guru does in Istanbul is fairly Greek and Latin except for the three-glasses game. Guru’s character had great potential, but Mani concentrates on one too many things within the three hour 70 mm format and loses focus of everything. Guru shows so much of passion to achieve success abroad while studying in Gujarat and when he is offered a promotion he reveals to a stunned audience that he wants to go back to his village and make it big there. Huh?!! If not for the hazaar interviews and over a lakh of trailors on the television I would have fallen off the seat when that happened.
Guru develops a circle of people whom he trusts unquestionably. And in business those are the people that decide whether you go up or down. And Mani doesn’t show us how Guru develops that group of people. Guru seems to be a character that would have had a flair for sizing up people in the first look itself but Mani choses not to show that aspect. Guru is shown to be a man of just one aspect and that is MAKE IT BIG. But Guru is not a loner, Guru treats Nanaji as a father-like figure, Guru loves his wife, Guru loves his children, but then how did he develop such an apathy towards his brother-in-law? Or is it just that it was convenient to forget about Jignesh once he left Guru? Either the editor or the story has erred completely on these aspects.
And what is this obsession with rain? Who in his right mind would hold a shareholder meeting under rain? Especially when all the previous meetings had a roof, this one meeting there is no roof and it rains too! I mean God must be so mean! Abhishek Bachchan’s acting towards the end falters a little in terms of being consistent with the facial experessions.
And I would like to mention about art direction a little here. The sign of “Shakti Corporation” put up on the background of the shareholder meeting looked like a typical thermocol cut-out which a school-going kid would have made. No, am not saying you need to have a metal cut-out with shine and all that, atleast a classy banner would have done. Especially when you are talking about “India’s biggest company”! If I were Mani Ratnam, I wouldn’t have accepted such amateurish work. Don’t know what Mani was doing.
The songs are placed so badly in the movie that if I were A R Rahman I would just sit and cry because you don’t expect Mani to make such fundamental blunders. ‘Barso re’ and ‘Ek lo ek muft’ are the only songs that are in the place they were meant to be. All the other songs seem utterly out of place. ‘Jaage hain’ was the most dissappointing for me. The greatness of the song is totally lost in the awkard placement.
But yeah, there are good parts in the movie too. The theme of the movie is an excellent one in today’s times. Dream big and get going. If someone tries to throw muck at you go further ahead. Amazing message. And finally there is the touch with reality too – showing the system and it’s fallacies. How the system itself produces a person that it finally comes to hate is a fantastic concept. The narrative that it starts off with is suddenly given up somewhere along the line. Not that you miss it, but then you expect Mani to keep a track of such things.
The performances are good. Nothing to get excited about. Abhishek excels. And shows shades of his legendary father during the last scene. Especially when he says, “..yeh haath aise hi latakta rehta hai…” (…this hand that hangs…) you are instantly transported to the “Vijay Deenanath Chauhan” of Agneepath. Good work Abhishek.
Aishwarya is sadly relegated to nothing not even background. A cute song to start with, a few dialogues here and there, have kids and smile into the sunset. What a role Mani! I am sure Suhasini would have voiced her concern with you about it! But Aishwarya does justice to the role. She was not as plastic as I thought she would be. She is better today than she was in “Aur pyar ho gaya” (Her hindi debut movie). And she is made to glow through Rajiv Menon’s camera – credit to Rajiv where it is due!
Mithun da is the smashing package. You love him when he supports Guru and hate him when he criticizes Guru. That’s the dynamite that Mithn da is. And not only by seniority but also by performance he establishes why his name should be flashed first during the title credits.
Madhavan and Vidya Balan have no chemistry whatsoever. When Madhavan proposes marriage I almost spat out the popcorn. I was like..what the $#@! is happening here? Madhavan’s costumes make for an interesting study item. Only when he goes out for stories does he wear khadi kurtas and while at workplace and home he is either in casual shirts or t-shirts! Hillarious that was! I mean stereotyping ki bhi koi hadh hoti hai yaar! (There must be some limit to stereotyping!)
Vidya Balan’s character was what I fell in love with. The objective lens of the movie. Everyone she loves is fighting with one another. But she knows the ’true’ thing. The ‘right’ thing. Stunning character. Whatever stars I give in my rating will be for Mani’s ability to visualise a character of this sort. But then the execution of her character on the big screen failed big time.
The art direction though very detailed and precise and all that engineering good stuff you want to say about it. It looked artificial. Maybe I don’t have the eye for “sets”, but then this is my review, right?!
Mani Ratnam could have slept though this movie. I believe in this man’s ability and know that he will make another classic in an year’s time and it will be called “Lajjo”. You have failed in Guru though, for me atleast, that’s the truth.
Rating: **
Legend:
*Stay at home
**If you have the time to kill, go ahead, but not recommended
***Watch if you are a film buff!
****Go watch it on the big screen!
*****Don’t miss watching this one on the big screen! Avoid piracy!
thansk for this nice review.
Good One!….The story sounds like Dhirubhai’s?
Whoa!! That was quite an impressive review!! Looks like you watched the movie first day first show :) I guess this must be the first review of GURU put up on the internet.
[...] Nice review of the movie avaible here: http://www.mysorean.com/2007/01/12/guru-a-review/ Credited cast: Abhishek Bachchan Aishwarya Rai Madhavan more… [...]
[...] However, Mysorean returned unimpressed When I got up from my seat during the interval I realized my eyes were aching because the camera had moved so much that it almost had me tired. Atleast by Mani’s standards we have seen much better pictures than the work done here. [...]
[...] Mysorean Frankly, I was not impressed with the movie at all. A typical rags to riches story is what we all knew it was about. But then with Mani Ratnam wielding the microphone you expected better stuff. Alas! Mani misses the bus! The execution of the story lacks conviction and is too unbelievably fantasy-like. [...]
Thava:
Thanks for your kind words! :)
Sanjeev:
Thanks!
Almost a biography of Dhirubhai, but Mani doesn’t want to admit it fearing the backlash he faced when he said there was a character similar to Bal Thackeray in ‘Bombay’!
PizzaDude:
In fact it was the second review on the internet. First one was by a portal.
Btw, I watched the movie on Thursday night. The premiere show! :)
Nice review about Guru. Let me watch it some time soon…
Wish you a Happy Pongalo Pongal, have a nice time with your family and friends:)
Jeevan:
If you have the time to kill that is! :)
Thanks and wish you the same Jeevan!
Very impressive and realistic re-view of the otherwise over hyped movie. After running down ur review, I felt that I had made a wise choice b/w ‘Mungaru Male’ and ‘Guru’. The former at least has got some good music and a convincing story line! Thnx yaar. Ur review for sure has saved some bucks.
1) board meeting in rain
2) why dirubhai loves nanaji and not his bro n law
3) closeup camera angles.
4) slowmotion moments.
dude…this is a movie. it’s a way of seeing one of india’s biggest corporate owner’s bio & how he struggled hard. pls read or hear abt dhirubhai before u start writing stupid reviews.honestly speaking, ur review is a set back review.
Suresh:
Thanks! :) And glad to have saved some money!
Sathish:
In fact I was expecting more comments like your to pour in crticising my review to death. Good atleast you had the time to read and point out what you felt are negative points of the review.
I don’t think we need to “read or hear (?)” about Dhirubhai before reviewing Guru because Mr. Mani Ratnam is frantically denying that his movie is a biopic of Dhirubhai. In any case, I didn’t expect Mani to err on the fronts that I thought he did. If you think otherwise, we sure could discuss instead of calling each other names! :)
Thanks for your comment!
dear mysorean, thanks for accepting my comment.
guru inspired me a lot. kept thinking about how focused he was in his ‘buziness’.
mani has never ever taken any imaginative fictions till today. all his movies are based on bio or old epics or true story. thats literally the style of tom hanks and his friend spielberg.
Sathish:
Guru is definitely inspirational. And that’s one of the major pluses of the movie that I missed out in my review. It inspired me also. I agree with you. If we believe in our dreams and want to do something, then Guru is the movie to watch to learn how to go about our vision single-mindedly!
Very nice review… I didn’t like that movie either… It is better to watch Velu bhai in Nayagan once again than watching Gurubhai here… :(
Yogesh:
I think the only commonality between Nayagan and Guru is that both are biopics of controversial Indians. Nayagan had Kamal who is probably a zillion times better than Abhishek, but that doesn’t mean to say that Abhishek hasn’t done well. It is sad that Kamal and Mani haven’t worked together again.
To cut a long story short: I agree with you! ;)
Thanks for your comment!
Adi,
That was a really ‘clear cut’ review of Guru. Well, now I am a little hesitant to watch the movie…! But I wonder why there is no mention of the so called hot number by Mallika Sherawat? ;-)
Jo:
Mallika Sherawat, oh yeah, from the scenes in Istanbul you feel that she has a longer role than what was finally shown to us because of her sudden appearance in one of the frames. This only adds to the letting down process that Mani has embarked upon in this movie.
Coming to your point, the number is hot – no doubts about that! But you don’t fully feel it because of the “handycam” cinematography. People are praising the cinematography to the skies but are either ignorant or deliberately avoiding to point out the mistakes that have been made. You don’t expect Rajiv Menon to stoop to such levels.
Again coming back to your point, Ms. Sherawat has a body that many of our present day actresses can only dream of. And that’s what is really hot! :)
Looks like anything regarding Guru and I ain’t able to keep my replies short!;)
Hi Adi,
I tend to agree with your rating of the movie, tho’ I would go more for can watch once recommendation. But I think my reasons are different. Rather than repeat them here, check my review on the blog.
uh-oh, had forgotten to publish it. Check now?
Penuryofthought:
Glad we agree on the rating atleast. Our reviews always contradict each other! Waiting for your review. Went to your blog to find some general Chennai gyaan!
All Mani Ratnam movies have their sentimentalities.They potray an interesting tension of a film-maker artistically inclined and yet has a populist bend. This article touches upon it: http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2002/06/30/stories/2002063000150500.htm
Guru is one such..i didnt go in expecting him to deal with the story in the spirit of citizen kane or for it to be a generic run of the mill rags to riches drama. Its threads a thin line between the two. I loved its cinematic imperfections and hated its lop sided view of an empire builder.
Hi Adi,
Getting back to your review, here are a few things I dont agree with :-) (you can’t expect me to change that much!):
`Shout and trade’ or floor trading was the way stock exchanges functioned till a few years ago and some commodity exchanges too – there are a lot of movies which portray this and it is actually in keeping with the times in which it was shot. It is not really therefore an inconsistency.
Could Madhavan really have proposed any other way? Would you rather that he proposed sentimentally or sensitively? If your point on the other hand was that did he really have to marry her at all, I would have wholeheartedly agreed.
Inconsistency in Madhavan’s clothes? It is quite real, if you have ever moved in a journalist’s world. He is not always clad in Khadi incidentally – only when he goes to meet Ganshyam. Otherwise he favours normal clothes.
And finally, the system does not hate Dhirubhai. Where is that portrayed? Till the newspaper bashing starts everyone including the Independent’s editor are lapping up the goodies showered by Dhirubhai. I thought the jury too was rather indulgent. It would have been a change if the picture had admitted one basic truth – the jury’s decision was based on practical realities.` Get the guy to pay up for his transgressions and then get on with life’, is the way the real world functions. So why the indulgence?
Usha:
Thanks for your comment!
I see your point. Maybe there is merit in it. But then there is a danger that Mani might get into the ‘pseudo-intellectual cinema’ mode while towing that line.
‘Cinematic imperfections’ is a term I didn’t understand. Can you explain with particular reference to Guru?
Penuryofthought:
1. Please name one movie that portrays ‘Shout and Trade’ market. Hindi movie, ok?
2. I, probably, didn’t get my message across in the way I wanted to. In fact what I wanted to say was, why was the marriage necessary at all? So, we agree there.
3. Nowadays the journalists don’t wear the khadi kurtas. I know atleast a couple of journalists and have viewed their lives from close quarters. But yeah, it needn’t be such a big point as I made it out to be.
4. The jury is a part of the system that has now come to question Guru, right? I don’t know about like/ hate but they certainly don’t think that whatever Guru is doing is right. The stock market had rejected Shakti’s share prices which means that they also don’t quite believe what he is doing. The shareholder meeting where the shareholders question Guru and label him a thief, smuggler, etc, is also an indication of the system going against Guru. Atleast that’s what Mani has tried to project. Maybe it never happened with Dhirubhai in real life, but that’s not what the movie tries to say.
Could you tell about what is democracy. Most people’s choice .Most people want. Most people select. Most people select. You better compare the reviews given by all the leading magazine/actaul cine critics/overseas comments/….then think about your comments you have given ..where you are .
Give your postal address. I will send some good movies ( international & India language) DVD collection at free of cost. Watch it try to understand what the movie is . wha the character is . how to make a critics. so ..many ..
Jayamurugan:
The first part of your first comment is beyond my capability to understand. What democracy are you talking about? And where does that come in here?
Regarding comparing my review with others, I can agree with you at one level. But not at the “where are you?” level that you are suggesting. I can compare and contrast the reviewing techniques used by various people and see how I can improve on that front, but the content and opinion has to be original and my own. If 100 people like you come and tell me that my comments are not in coherence with what the other people have written then that’s because it is my review and my opinion and I am entitled to hold it and express it.
Yes, I know every other reviewer is praising the movie to the skies and all that stuff. But frankly, Mani has done better in the past and this is nowhere near what he can actually do with the kind of script he had!
Mail me personally mate. I will give you my postal address so that you can send me those “international and India language” good movies DVDs at free cost. But only one request: please send only original DVDs, otherwise they will go directly to the trash bin or police station!
Very good review there albeit I didnt like the movie though. Wow, your reviw of Guru is vivid with the fine observations in dialogue, names et. al. The review of Guru in my blog was too was a spoiler excepting the last 2 para’s confining to sort of analysis..
Yes, I know every other reviewer is praising the movie to the skies and all that stuff. But frankly, Mani has done better in the past and this is nowhere near what he can actually do with the kind of script he had!
very true
Yogesh:
:)
[...] See full review [...]
[...] Mysorean, Mysorean Rating: Thumbs down…A typical rags to riches story is what we all knew it was about. But then with Mani Ratnam wielding the microphone you expected better stuff… See full review [...]
Finally,
We watched this yesterday night.. IT was very inspiring, I liked everything there. May be in the end, it couldnt have been little better. Paralysis & all such things were little disappointing…
The judge guy is just brilliant, Roshan Seth alva…
The body language & his acting was superb, I haven’t watched many of AB’s movie, I disliked Yuva so much that this movie is a compensation for the loss.
Aish looks so good man! they both really make a nice pair, GOD blsss them..
Mithun & Mahadevan is good, Vidya is so charming.. not just the face but the whole personality..
enu ARR nodi amele life is halt antha heLi..elli hodri ? kayya kaTTi maayavaadanu namma shiva antha ondu haadu ide adu nenpaagtha ide :-)
Veena:
Yeah, may God bless them!
Illa ri bande iri. Swalpa Nigeria ge hogidde, alli internet connection sigodu kasta. So, adakke no updates!
[...] Mysorean, Mysorean Rating: Thumbs down …A typical rags to riches story is what we all knew it was about. But then with Mani Ratnam wielding the microphone you expected better stuff… See full review [...]
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