Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakroborty, Madhavan,
Vidya Balan
Direction: Mani Ratnam
Genre: Drama, Biographical!
Movie Overall Rating: *** (3 stars out of 5)
‘Guru’ generally means a teacher. It gets applied to anyone who acquires followers and it is also referred to a person who has authority because of his or her perceived knowledge or skills in a domain of expertise.
Here “Guru” can be applied to Mani Ratnam, an intelligent director who excels in unique subjects for his films; Abhishek Bachchan, for his admirable acting in the complex role of a driven man, and the inspiration of this movie, the man who reached zenith from zilch, the business tycoon and founder of Reliance Industries - Dhirubhai Ambani.
Guru is a story of Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan), a villager, visionary and a winner. He is an ambitious dreamer who has vision, determination and a never ending spirit. Coming from humble origins, son of a school teacher in a village of Gujarat, he learns the worldly ways to succeed, working in Turkey. His ambition to start a business leads him to Bombay with minimal belongings, a wife (Aishwarya), brother-in-law and some money. He progresses very fast, by fair and not so fair ways. In spite of constant negative publicity from his truthful early mentor , a communist editor, Manik Das Gupta (Mithun Chakroborty) and his assistant journalist Shyam Saxena (Madhavan ) who use the power of pen and media against him. Guru still realizes many a dream in his relentless pursuit. Starting from being the first manufacturer of polyester in India to becoming the largest private sector enterprise in the country!
The life story of Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani popularly called Dhirubhai Ambani is very similar. Many focal incidents of Dhirubhai’s life become the story of Guru. The enterprising Indian entrepreneur has humble roots from Chorwad, Gujarat, who started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias/fritters" to pilgrims and travelers over the weekends. He worked for few years in oil company in Aden, Yemen. He returned to India and started a textile company which imported textile from Yemen. Sensing good opportunity in the business of textiles, Dhirubhai started his first textile mill and manufactured polyester fabric. Over time his business has diversified into petrochemicals, telecommunications, information technology, energy, power, retail, textiles, infrastructure services, capital markets, and logistics.
He made millionaires out of ordinary men and first time investors, simply because they had faith in his vision and invested in the Ambani dream. - The Reliance textile IPO.
He was deterred at one point in time by his old friend Ramanath Goenka of Indian Express. The Indian Express, published articles daily against Reliance Industries and Dhirubhai which claimed that Dhirubhai was using unfair trade practices to maximize profits. The tussle ended in his stroke which paralyzed his right hand.
The man with an iron will kept going. - The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Group's annual revenues are in excess of USD 22 billion. The flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500 company and is the largest private sector company in India.
In spite of so many similarities, Guru was not publicized as a biography of Ambani, I guess to avoid getting sued from the largest Indian conglomerate for any kind of defamation!
Guru also seems inspired from Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Aviator’ starring Leonardo Di Caprio.
The Movie ‘Guru’ is Abhishek- centric all the way. His performance through out from youth to the older successful tycoon was enacted with maturity and depth. At times he clones Kamal Hassan’s ‘Nayakan’ image and even his father Amitabh. The driven roles are getting to be his forte. Lately many of his roles in other movies too have been ambitious, goal oriented, single- minded characters.
Aishwarya doesn’t play much of a role. Mithun is carving good roles in his comeback. Madhavan and Vidhya Balan had good performances in their minor roles and weak characterization. Their roles seemed heavily edited but surprisingly not the smooch! Mallika Sherawat makes a scintillating presence in a Mediterranean dance number.
The A R Rehman’s music with Gulzar’s Lyrics together made some good songs. The movie though could have done without one or two songs. Though the intention of alternating the events with songs may have been to avoid a chronicled documentary like film, but eventually it prolonged the length and slowed the pace of the movie.
It also comes with a few editing glitches. Though guru’s favorite dialogue is “I came to Bombay with 2 shirts, a wife, a brother-in-law and Rs25,000 to start a business”. The bro-in-law disappears from the story after a small tiff! Madhavan’s and Vidya Balan’s characters after getting the editing axe, lack depth and detail.
Though the movie is a cinematic excellence, it’s not a high entertainer. While most Mani Ratnam movies are commended for his balance of artistic and cinematic excellence with commercial entertainment. This movie may fall short on the entertainment factor.
The timing of the movie seems perfect and pertinent when the Indian economy is in accelerate mode due to rapid corporate growth of manufacturing and business services, and domestic and multi-national companies. Guru may inspire many an entrepreneur or even instigate questions about the reality of corporate world!
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