Guru - Movie Review

It has been over three months since the movie was released and I just got to see it on a flight from Frankfurt to India. Agreed that it was not the best location to see a movie but what the heck. One inescapable conclusion - Mani has added business naivete to his already well recognized political naivete (Dil Se, Yuva, Bombay ..). What was he thinking?

The story in brief – Gurukanth Desai is a failure in academics, goes to Turkey and earns a decent work reputation there but comes back to India to start his own business here. He marries Sujata (Aishwarya), who has a failed elopement plan on her resume, for dowry to start his business. He comes to Mumbai, makes it big in the textile trade and over time becomes one of the largest industrialists in the country. But this is not at the cost of creating enemies – personally and professionally and is finally hauled up before the court for violating some license era regulations.

A lot about the direction

The movie could as well have been produced by Indiatimes as part of their India Poised campaign. The hollowness of that campaign seems eerily similar to the gung-ho optimism of the direction in this movie. Even the background score (especially towards the end court scenes) has a rousing, Rajnikanth-going-for-the-climactic-fight, over the top feel to it. I had a similar feeling when I saw Independence Day – “Today, America will save the world” or some such nonsense. Every scene and every dialogue serves just to drive home the optimism of capitalism and moneymaking – when Ash examines Guru’s paunch, she says that she can sense 25,000 shareholders in there, when Sujata delivers twins the doctor says just like Guru’s companies which double profits, he has got double the benefit with one ejaculation (okay those last words are mine). It gets tiresome after a point.

For me the main culprit is the screenplay which is extremely weak and thin – in building characters or situations. Business is hard work, here it is reduced to serendipity, puffed out chests and standing outside buildings. The last of the above takes the cake, it was as bad as using banana peels to evoke humour. It was that inane. Never do you see Guru struggling - leave aside living in chawls or going on Mumbai locals, where are the parts he refers to (in his final speech) – walking on feet all over Mumbai, lifting huge bundles of polyester. Struggle is only alluded to, not depicted. Where are the sorrows, disappointments, ebbs and flows of business. It seems to be one big joy ride for Guru. Never a wrong step, nary any hesitation. Does Guru regret having to make compromises, not seeing his kids growing up, or having kids late, or not devoting time to family etc. Mani just ignores the huge impact on personal life of entrepreneurship. In fact Guru’s family just serves as a picture frame, even his kids just disappear after inspiring one of the most illogical songs in Mani’s repertoire.

When Guru is pulled up in the press by Mithun Chakraborty’s newspapers for his misdeeds, we are not shown what those actions were save one minor scene with a politician. You can’t use the argument that Don Corleone (or Velu Nayakan) wasn’t shown killing people - in those cases, that is assumed, that is the underworld’s profession. But in a business biography, you need to depict the misdeeds. You can’t shy away from it. Well, unless Mani feels that all businessmen transgress laws anyway. If your argument then is that in a 2:30 hr movie you can’t be so detailed about business aspects (about rise is business or the misdemeanours) then you need to focus on the personal side (like a Godfather, Sarkar ..), you can’t do a total copout saying we do not have time, being a biography of a whole life. He could have cut all the unnecessary crap like Vidya Balan’s role (who is over-rated and overweight and whose only asset is a cosmetic enhanced smile).

Mani’s lack of business acuity is obvious where Guru is offered a blank cheque by a Parsee businessman to sell his businesses. A blank cheque, where did that come from - I thought this went out with Kader Khan or Pran. Does Mani think that is the way business is done.

Now to the climax – it has already been ridiculed and it deserves every bit of that. The comparison with Gandhi was downright puerile, he could have compared Guru to Robin Hood or some such comic book hero, spreading wealth among the masses. What irks me is that Mani appears confused here, throughout the movie the mood is almost that greed is good and we are not required to “like” or empathise with the character of Guru, however in the climax he does an about turn to indicate that all the while he was working in the best interest of the masses. Who is playing with the audiences here – Guru or Mani. And what is that Hindi-English bull in the court. It is like Govinda, the village bumpkin ribbing the big town, rich girl Karishma or Raveena.

Another biographical movie Gandhi (based on Guru’s spiritual guide, more on that later) was made in 3 hours, so the attempt to be breezy to fit the commercial biographical screenplay format lets the movie down badly.

A bit about the acting

Abhishek Bachchan has got a damn good role to play, but I think a better actor could have done a better job. But I guess Mani was hamstrung for choices. A movie like this required a star and a better actor like, say, Kay Kay Menon would not have fit the star billing. Abhishek is not bad, it is just that I am indifferent to him. He doesn’t surprise me, either in positively or negatively.

Repeat above comments on Abhishek for Aishwarya. Only change being that Mani could have got a better actress – say like Kajol or Konkona who would also have probably looked more Gujarati and more earthy too than Aishwarya.

The only actor with a large role who has done remarkably is Mithun who manages to steal each scene he is in.

It is all the two bit role players who have done a good job – Rajendra Gupta, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Madhavan (actually a four bit role) and make the movie rise a bit above the ordinary.

Nothing about the others

Return to insipidness by Rehman after the stunning score for RDB which seems to be a one-off. He wasn’t helped by Mani who has inserted songs at every wrong moment you can imagine. I would not like to comment about the technical aspects – we have reached a stage in our film-making where all the leading directors manage to get good work from their technical team.

Concluding remarks

Lastly, but primarily can we not have another intro rain song for the heroine. Can’t Mani recognize that he can’t repeat the same act for 2 decades. There are newer directors who are making more challenging movies (Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Basu, Rakesh Mehra) or old ones who are continuously dealing with fresh ideas (Ramgopal Varma). Mani, unfortunately, is not changing. And I am not qualifying my review here saying that I have higher expectations from Mani than from others and hence I am being harsher than usual. Even if this movie was made by Karan Johar or David Dhawan, my opinion would have been the same.