Sai Vineet Mohan Sinha Welcome 2007. Now you will ask how come I am late in welcoming Bond Year. The answer is Guru. Mani Ratnam did his homework nicely, took his lessons after Yuva's debacle. He ventures into a territory which no other director(s) would have dared to. It is always difficult to show the passage of time onto screen. After all few would have thought to bring the life of India's Corporate Behemoth Reliance's founder Late Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani onto 70mm Technicolor. Guru is a work of art. Guru has lot of pluses. Mani has his team already set out. The person behind the camera is none other than his most trusted lieutenant Rajiv Menon. The cinematography of Guru is impeccable. It is a journey of a boy (Gurukant Desai) living in a Gujarat village who fails in board exams, gets scolded by his headmaster father, who mocks at his plans to go abroad to earn livelihood. The boy heads off to Turkey and starts working at a petrol delivery firm. He goes as a boy but returns back as a man that too after enjoying belly dance (Mallika Sherawat impresses as the belly dancer Jhumpa, check out Maiyaa Maiyaa Number), making a fast friend Ghanshayam Bhai, and gathering some money. He gets an lucrative offer too but rejects it out rightly. Guru as a character is over ambitious and manipulative. He turns to his friend (Jignesh played by Arya Babbar) for monetary help and reveals about his plans. Jignesh refuses to help him monetarily as his father has saved money (Twenty Thousand approx.) for his sister's (Sujata played by Aishwarya Rai) marriage. He heads straight to Mumbai. To quote Guru "When I came to Bombay I had two shirts, a wife, a brother-in-law and Rs.15,000 in a small suitcase to start a business. But all doors were shut for a newcomer." The Cotton trading business is controlled by few golf playing good for nothing idiots. The idiot in question is Arzaan Contractor (played by Arjan Bajwa). Guru meets his to be-mentor who later on becomes his biggest foe Manik Das Gupta (assayed by Mithun Chakraborty) who is owner of The Independent (a Mumbai Daily). Mani may deny the facts that Guru is not inspired from Dhirubhai's life, but comparisons are inevitable. Dhirubhai in his early days of struggle had Indian Express founder True Gandhian, Late Ram Nath Goenka as his mentor and Godfather. Mithun no doubt delivers powerhouse performance. Guru topples Arzaan Contractor and starts trading in Polyster a non cotton fabric. Wearing non cotton fabric in those days as shown in the film was considered a taboo. He wants to set up his own factory as Shakti Industries. He decides that Shakti Industries will go public. As Guru continues his journey in top gear towards his goal, his aides and friends turn foes and his biggest critics. Jignesh and Guru part ways due to the Public Issue decision. Jignesh divulges the reason for Guru marrying his sister. Guru bribes ManikDas Gupta's editor and uses The Independent to settle scores with the Contractors. The rift between Manik Das Gupta and Guru further widens due to the entry of firebrand reporter (Shyam Saxena played by Madhavan). But the beauty of Guru lies in the fact that no matter whether the world goes against him the protagonist never forgets the ones he loves. Take the case of Meenakshi (Manik Das Gupta's multiple sclerosis affected and wheel chair confined grand daughter) portrayed by Vidya Balan. Shyam Saxena marries Vidya Balan, but still Guru continues to love and care for her. In portraying relationships Mani Ratnam is unmatched. Now enough of Guru Bhai. Lets talk about his better half, Sujata. Their first rendezvous occurs in a train. Sujata running from her home, crying and heart broken, because her first love has ditched her. Aish sizzles in Barso Re (shot entirely in Badami, Karnataka). She as a doting, protective and caring housewife stands apart of all the characters and supports her husband even when the entire world is daggers drawn towards him and when he suffers a paralytic stroke. Superficially, Guru is a journey of a person from 16 year old boy to 60 year old senior citizen, the ups and downs he encounters during this journey chasing his dreams which keep on getting bigger and bigger but once you scratch the surface it is a beautiful love story of two people, namely Guru and Sujata. Their love withstands the upheavals of life. In testing times (Especially the Hearing of Guru's Case in front of Thapar Commission) their love, commitment, trust remains rock solid. Another plus of Guru is the music by A R Rehman. Rehman reserves his best for Mani Ratnam Guru's Character has flaws too. He wants to pursue and fulfill his dreams either by hook or by crook. He flays the Export Import laws, acquires land illegally, obtains tax rebates from Government by showing exports in the books whereas in reality he is exporting empty boxes, bribes a minister to name a few. In spite of Guru's flaws, what stands out for him is his sincerity in pursuing his dreams, his vision crystal clear in his mind, the love and affection which he has for his wife and lieutenants who are ready to sacrifice their lives for Guru (example Ghanshyam Bhai), the trust he has on the shareholders.On a concluding note, Guru is a movie for people who dare to dream, people who have very strong determination, people who cherish and long for the moment when their dream will get fulfilled. After all we all dream. You, yourself have to get into Guru's shoes and then watch the masterpiece, after all it is a journey. You have to grow with Guru.

HeadleyLamarr Guru is Mani Ratnam's latest venture after Yuva, a film I loved much more than the somewhat muddled Rang De Basanti. Expectations are high with any film from Mani and this is an unacknowledged biography of one of the country's giants, Dhirubhai Ambani. I am forced to ask several questions: 1. Is Mani becoming cynical due to the lack of commercial success for his films? 2. Is the route to success to stack up the stars, and employ the conventional masala? 3. Where is the objectivity one expects from Mani? We saw him take no sides in the conflict shown in Dil se but here he is not sitting on the fence at all, making this an "official" biography.Why was Abhishek Bachchan chosen to play the role of Gurukant Desai? Did he match the physicality of Ambani? There are a very few moments when Abhishek does shine but mostly he leaves one uninvolved and uninterested. He caricatures the role, channels his dad in the angry moments and is a little too youthful in experience to get into the meat of this role. I would rather see him do another Yuva where I think he was probably the best he has ever been. Aishwarya is OK as Shanti, she is a sidelined character, the hand-holding wife. Her simplicity works in the film to keep her deglamorized. But why is she still reed slim after having two babies while Abhishek puts on more and more weight? And her dancing - can someone please tell her that swaying about in a reptilian fashion is not very attractive? The lead pair have zero chemistry - it is fine on his side, he did marry her for money, but there is not much at the other end either. Madhavan is much more real as the tenacious reporter, this young man has ample charm and talent. Vidya has nothing to do and does it while still looking very cute and managing to steal into our hearts. Her disease progresses in an alarming and unbelievable fashion - can someone tell the Hindi film industry to seek medical advice before concocting ailments? Roshan Seth is laughable as the panel head - like the old courtroom judges of the 70s. That brings me to the one reason to watch Guru. Watch Guru to see Mithun turn out an amazing performance - nuanced, powerful and towering above the rest of the cast. Maybe Mani should have cast Mithun as Gurubhai! Mallika in the Maiyya Maiyya number was sizzling - the character was clearly an item girl but of course Mani cannot stoop to such low class selling tactics so she had 30 more seconds after her dance. Now let us get to the music. One always expects an outstanding musical score in a Mani film - it is hard to forget the scores of Roja, Bombay, Yuva and above all of Dil se. But here the Mani and A R Rehman combo is unable to weave much magic. Ai Hairathe is beautiful, I like Maiyya Maiyya for its unusual sounds and the lines - Tu Dheere Dheere Khena Dariya Na Chalke, but the rest is most pedestrian. I hated Barso re in the film, Ek lo Ek Muft was laughable, and there was nothing else of note other than the fact that the music did not integrate well into the film. By the way - Abhishek danced like he was being periodically prodded by a cattle prod.But by putting all these elements together Mani did get a hit film - so I guess he made the right call. Done that - now can someone please ask him to go back to making movies with soul like Bombay and heart like Dil se?

springsunnywinter The story was not very interesting but the film itself was so slow and dull that I felt like I could complete a world tour and still be left with incomplete Guru. I rented the movie on a 3 day hire and I couldn't watch all of it at once. I've seen 1 hour on the first day, the second hour on the second day and the final half an hour on the third day so basically it took me 3 days to watch an 2 and a half hour movie phew! It should have been cut down to 30 minutes but it still would have been long. Personally I don't mind how long a film is, as long if it's watch able e.g. Salaam-e-Ishq was 3.5 hours and I seen the whole movie in one go and I really liked it. I just don't know how the audience managed to watch all of it in the cinema hall and it is the filmmaker's luck that Guru is a hit. The only good scene is Mallika Sherawat's cameo and the songs are also good but they didn't make the film any better so my advice would be to watch up to the song Maya Maya. Overall I think that Guru is specifically made for old people and youngsters should avoid it.

agefreak_1000 OH well this movie has everything to offer one can imagine.....good acting, good songs, choreography etc.This movie is about guru who wants to become a big business tycoon.... he marries ash and goes to mumbai to ful fil his dreams.....he becomes a big industrialist from a poor villager .......... he earns the favour of the people but this does not last too long and is soon declared as corrupted all because of the newspaper runned by mr chakarboty who points his needle against him for spreading corruption.....there he realise the hardships that one has to face but finally with his effort starts up his own industry of textiles and faces a lots of hardships in future as everybody stands against him considering him corrupted....... This film has everything to offer especially the performances.... HAts off to the actors who threw mighty performances in this flick...... this was his best ever logical performance especially his power packed speech in the end which makes everyone clap........... ash also for the first time threw an impressed performance and gives a sign in improvement of her acting... the songs are also beautifully composed in optimistic backgrounds... overall this film is a GOODIE!