Sunday, January 28, 2007

Guru


Spoiler: Plot details maybe revealed.

So finally I saw Guru. After all the hype surrounding it and everything. Ofcourse most of you know that most parts of the movie are loosely based on Dhirubhai Ambani's life. For you Manirathnam fans (like me!), this wasn't a typical Mani movie. It had an unexpected 'alls well that ends well' theme for one.

It has a fully loaded star cast and the show stealer ofcourse is Abhishek Bachchan as Gurukant Desai. He has delivered a wonderfully genuine performance though in the end, in a couple of scenes when he is supposed to be paralyzed, he seems to have forgotten how he needed to have portrayed that and ends up more than just twitching the eye of that side. A few slips but overall a laudable performance. Ash doesn't have sooo much of a role but to her credit has done pretty well and is very believable as the 'gawar' wife. The 'romance' between the two is surreal and very typical of olden married couples (I suppose!). Ofcourse the start of it was that he married her purely for the dowry he would get which would complete the intial amount he required to setup his business. Mithun da... was a well-kept secret I must say. Till a couple of days back, I didnt even know he was in the movie, let alone that he gave a pretty decent, not-overactive performance and looked very good rather than the ugly 'looks' that he has been given in some of his preceding movies. Vidya Balan as usual is a show-stealer and is making a mark in the Industry. She is not just beautiful but immensely talented as well and I look forward to seeing her in 'Eklavya' also. Madhavan is subtle and bearable in the movie. However his Hindi diction leaves a lot to be desired.

The story is probably pretty well-known by now - the rise of a BIG businessman to state it short. But the rise from chotu bijinessman to the baap of all companies bore likeness to many Rajnikant movies where everything happens within the timeframe of a song. So, about 40% of the movie covers Guru's life from a high school dropout to this big man. The rest of the movie is how with money comes power comes corruption comes trouble. Somehow, Mani has actually left some lose ends hanging. For example, it was never clarified as to what happened later between Guru and his brother-in-law when a huge feud crops up between them. The ending is surprisingly good and everything ends well for Guru.

The songs are alright... a couple are really catchy but the cinematography and the choreography left a lot to be desired. And Mallika Sherwat fades into oblivion.

All in all, definitely worth a watch for some powerful performances.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmm interesting review...even though you havent asked my thoughts on ur review here goes:
Unexpected all's well that ends well...eh. i dont remmeber how bombay ended but i remember how roja ended and i would say even that was pretty much all's well that ends well..i guess nayagan had the ending wherein the protagonist died... anyway yeah there were a quiet a few slipups by abhishek bachan including the temporary memory lapse with respect to paralysis and he keeps forgetting the gujarati accent from time to time taht he is supposed to maintian but then one of his best performance till date...
I guess the fact that guru and his brother-in-law never interacted after the altercation conveys that he no longer mattered and he is no longer a part of guru's efforst towards success...in eseence he doesnt matter... i loved all teh songs in guru..but the picturization was motsly awful...but then i dont know how u dint like the cinematography...i thought that was the best part of the movie...rajiv mennon did one hell of a job...i guess the ending needed to have a tighter speech like the one given by gordon gecko in wallstreet...incidentally if u havent seen wallstreet i suggest u go and do it as soon as possible.. one more thing i think the script got edited... so the parts were malika sherawat was involved were all cut ..and we had her only involvement in the item number..but hey what a song and dance :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Sud.. Thanks for the comments... By the cinematograpy not being good , I meant in the songs.. Otherwise it was great... No I meant the "alls well that ends well" thing as a factor that this movie was well worth the 'sad' ending. Suddenly he just becomes all good and the good ol' bijinessman n all.. Mallika.. eeks.. Being a man, I expect no less from u.. I liked only 3 songs though.. But then I guess we each are entitled to our own opinions. :)

Anonymous said...

Slightly different opinion than mine... read my review too...

Good performance from Mithun-da and Abhishek. You and I are on the same page on Vidya Balan!

Anonymous said...

Hey Sorry to be an intruder, but felt like posting a comment. :)
This movie doesn't deserve an alls well that ends well kinda ending. Sudarshan (alas Dhirubhai) remember Dil se it also had a tragic ending, but why Maniratnam didn’t stick to that?
Dil se was Mani’s first hindi movie (made simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil…) others were dubbed in Hindi. That movie bombed at the box office in spite of having Shahrukh and the primary reason was its ending.
Hence Mani played it safe this time. And we always want to see happy ending isn’t it :), so Mani tried to make us happy…

But isn’t it true that whatever Dhirubhai Ambani did was the need of those times… And if Mani would not have ended the movie in alls well that ends well mode then it couldn’t have been based on Dhirubhai Ambani’s life….

Yeap overall a nice movie and the song were good esp. Jage hai.

Anonymous said...

somehow I felt tht mithun da was the star of the film. Abhi cud hav put a lot more "dum" into his role! seriosly!!!!

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