Okkk.... it had to happen sometime.... since I love movies so much I had to start reviewing movies sometime or the other... so why not start with the latest movie in the market.... Guru.... and before you start reading this review please do not expect any deep insight and colourful language which are normally exhibited by the newspaper critics... This is just my perspective on the movie.... highlighting some of the things that I like, for the reasons I consider best... its all about ME, ME, ME!... okkk it is also about the movie...
Ok... So about GURU...
Named after the main character Gurukant Desai played brilliantly by Abhishek Bachan the film Guru interested me primarily because it was about the Ambani patriarch (despite strong claims to the contrary by the film makers and actors)....I wanted to know more about the man who built such a huge industrial empire in India with just 15000 in his pocket... who didnt have any business school degree and yet set up the monster industry that many of us are in some or the other associated with in our lives... how did he do it? was he scared? Did he think he would fail?? Did he feel lost and hopeless at times?
To a certain extent the film did satisfy my curiousity...
Unlike a typical hindi movie hero, the film shows the protagonist as one who is all wrong...he is ambitious, ruthless, user friendly, corrupt and wont stop at adopting any means to get to his end... yet he also has qualities that one loves in a person... for instance he is fearless- he doesnt fear retribution, doesnt fear humiliation, doesnt fear societal strictures nothing.... and he is totally confident about himself.... in a particular scene where his father tells him that business is not everybody's game and he wont succeed in it... the frame doesnot show any dejection or negativism in the young Gurubhai but shows a silent strength- one can almost read him saying "I am going to do it despite all this".... and I am sure many of us have at one point or the other told that to ourselves.. I have... and that is where the film reaches out to you... you see a common man like you on the screen and you want him to succeed....and like the hero in the film you want to see success and are not really concerned about the nitty gritty details about how the success comes .....
and helping him in his extraordinary climb are the ordinary people in his life ... his doubting father, helpful father in law, trusting brother in law, loyal munshi and friend etc who all play such a crucial role in his life yet do not dominate the screen beyond the need..... each of their characters are essayed with such smoothness that one doesnt particularly miss them when they are gone and neither does one want to see less of them in any scene... they are just perfect.....
The movie is also about the love between the husband and wife... the role of the wife is ofcourse played by Aishwarya Rai who is surprisingly restrained.... she plays a dutiful wife- a traditional woman whose world revolves around her Guru.... and while it had all ingredients of showing women as being the weaker sex, the movie does add some sort of romance to the concept of a dutiful wife... she is all about the calm in his life.... the one thing that stays constant.......
Certain scenes stand out particularly in my mind... the scene where Gurubhai asks the chairman of the enquiry commission to speak in hindi after the chairman waved them shut and continued with his spiel in english.... the wife explains on behalf of her husband "we are from the village. We can understand only hindi"...simple fact- powerful message..... and the scene where Gurubhai stands on the vacant plot of land with the blue print of his proposed factory and the rain comes down...you see a man on the cusp of victory.... and the scene where Guru cries for his friend who attempted suicide and says in the midst of his tears "You face is so ugly that I cry whenever I look at it"... a very reluctant human side to the otherwise ruthless Guru....
What the movie also attempts to do is in some way justify the ruthless means of this man.... the end justifies the means they say... and this is what probably will rankle with most watchers.... was he all that great if he did it all through underhand methods?? Should he not have had the decency to not do such things to get where he is? It is a debate that can go on and on.... the question in my mind really is -Would you rather have a Reliance in India or have none at all... I dont know whether the answer to that is easy.... did we pay a price for allowing Ambani to come up the way he did? We probably did in terms of raising the bar on corruption... but did the country benefit by getting employment for so many people? We probably did .... dont know what to choose...
Ofcourse the film is perfectly punctuated with good songs... my favourite one is the song introducing Aishwarya Rai.... and the one with Malaika is a catchy number as well.......
In the end the film achieves what it is supposed to .... it tells you a good story.... one that you want to hear over and over again..... afterall who can resist a rags to riches story??
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