Good Attempt - But too artificial and flimsy!!

Introduction
Mani Ratnam is one of India's finest directors. Right from his initial movies like Nayakan, Anjali to the more recent ones like Bombay, he has a penchant to present both reality and sensitive issues in an entertaining and shocking manner. So when Guru based on loosely on the rise of India's iconist industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani was announced, India was waiting with abated breath.

The Plot
Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is a small time villager with big time dreams. Though a failure in studies, he has a vision for doing business. He manages to get a visa to work in a Burma-Shell Petrol pump in Turkey. His job includes carrying and selling petroleum cans. But, soon he feels empty in this job and wants to move on to his own business, so he returns back to India.

He marries Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) for the dowry money that her father possesses and thus has enough capital to start his own business. With this capital he comes to the city of dreams, Mumbai, but is shocked to see the license raj at its worst. Somehow, he manages to get a license with the aid of an idealistic newspaper editor Manikdas Gupta (Mithun Chakravarthy).

Once, he has the license, Guru begins his journey in the world of business and also is learning and bending the rules of the License Raj. Using a bottom up approach where in from each person from the bottom to top is bribed to the core to get licenses and for bending the rules, Guru’s Shakti industries soon becomes one of the top industries in India.

Manikdas Gupta, though, is shocked at this change in Guru and employs rookie journalist, Shyam Saxena (R. Madhavan) to expose Guru and Shakti Industries. Shyam’s investigative journalism and his insights into the dealings of Shakti industries soon become a regular feature in newpapers and soon there is a big public outcry and a commission is setup to decide the fate of Shakti Industries.

What happens next? Does Guru’s dreams get squashed after the initial success? Does Shyam’s efforts bear fruit? Check out Guru for all the answers.

Critic’s Viewpoint
As mentioned earlier, the movie is loosely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani of Reliance Industries. But, when I saw the movie, the similarities seemed to end with the fact that Dhirubhai also started his career at Burma Shell, he also believed in the power of public offering, he knew the rules of License Raj in and out and the fact that he wanted to build a Petroleum plant bigger than Burma Shell.

Although, I am a big fan of most of Mani Ratnam’s movie, Guru turns out to be a lame movie for a autobiographical look into one of India’s biggest success stories. In any such movie, the things that really make or break are things like closeness to facts, excellent dialogs, brilliant screenplay and recreation of the settings. In all of these, Guru had an artificial feel to it.

First of all, the more significant aspects of Dhirubhai’s life like the his fight for Shareholder’s rights and his lifelong commitment to shareholder values were not properly highlighted. Also, his business acumen was never properly highlighted. Dialogs were a big let-down in this movie. I could hardly come back and remember any dialog that stood out in the movie.

The screenplay and recreation of the settings was excellent in some parts, but then again there was an artificial feel to it. To add to this, the artificial songs and insipid music just made the movie unbearable at times.

Coming to performances, this movie is termed as one of the best performances by Abhishek Bachchan. I don’t think so. I have seen better performances from him in his other movies like Refugee and Bunty aur Babli. In Guru, he seems to be consumed by the role of Guru and seemed to be awed by the magnitude of the role. I would have loved it if the younger Bachchan would have potrayed the young Guru and the Big B had come in for the elder Guru. Then it would just have been perfect.

Amongst the rest of the cast, both Mithun and R Madhavan look quite good in small roles. Vidya Balan also plays the role of a energetic girl crippled waist down very well. The rest of the cast including Aishwarya are hardly noticeable.

The music is a major let-down. Except for the runaway hit Barso re Megha Megha, the rest of the songs are more or less below the standards set by Mani Ratnam- A.R. Rehman combo and if you are watching on a DVD, you would like to have your remote ready for the fast forward option.

Summary
Guru has been touted in some sections of media as an epic movie on the lives and style of Dhirubhai Ambani. I feel it has been a lame attempt at making and biographical movie and the flimsy entertainment aspects spoil the whole movie.

All in all I would give this Mani Ratnam movie a 3 star rating.