How often have we
said this while re-reviewing films on this site?
That for all the ace technical crew assembled,
for all the strong performances, a film ultimately
fails to deliver as a whole due to a weak screenplay.
We saw this with Fanaa, Krrish, Dhoom 2
and now Guru too falls into this category.
The disappointment in Guru’s case is all
the more as this is a Mani
Ratnam film – a director who has the
reputation and track record of making films that
have been both commercially successful and intellectually
stimulating as well.
Guru, as is now widely known, is inspired
by Dhirubhai Ambani’s rags to riches saga
and traces Gurukant Desai’s rise from a
young lad in a remote village of Gujarat to overcoming
 all
odds and becoming India’s top industrialist.
The elements are all there in the inherent story
for the film to be a rousing epic highlighting
the triumph of the human spirit but unfortunately
the film’s script is far too superficial
and simplistic. One never feels Guru battling
huge odds to make a success of his life. And even
in the attempt of making him grey as Guru breaks
rules to move ahead, Ratnam justifies the same
in the climatic speech with Guru saying it was
the only way he could move up in life, bringing
in a clumsy it was all for the shareholders logic
and India’s progress towards becoming a
first world country and equating Guru’s
flaunting of rules to Gandhi breaking rules to
get freedom from the British. Really!
The film deals with a huge time span but its
flow is choppy and uneven, Lots of loose ends
are left hanging. The track of Guru’s father
for instance. Considering it is he who has the
least belief in Guru’s abilities surely
a scene was required between the two once Guru
has tasted success. As is the track with his brother-in-law
who snaps ties with him. One also fails to see
what additional impact the Vidya Balan track adds
to the film, in fact it takes away from its main
focus.
Even the ‘Mani Ratnam moments’ are
but sporadic and often reminiscent of what he
has already done in his earlier films. Potentially
winning scenes like when Guru and his wife reach
their old house and remember their times together
in their struggling days are killed with being
overlong, obvious with some sloppy juxtaposition
of the then and now shots.
The strength of the film lies in its performances.
The film is Abhishek’s story from beginning
to end and the actor by and large delivers. At
his best moments he is nothing short of brilliant
(the scene where his bro-in-law reveals the truth
to this wife about her marriage for instance )
and while his performance is refreshingly natural
and charming as the young man making his fortune,
it appears laboured and even a little stilted
as he ages. The mannerisms, gestures, dialogues
are deliberate and over the top to show he has
aged. And there is a sense of déjà
vu in some of his angry young man scenes which
at times seem to be invoking his father. But all
in all,  he
more than ably carries the film on his shoulders.
Aishwarya Rai responds with perhaps one of the
most natural and real performances of her career.
Though essentially a supporting role as the woman
behind Abhishek, she nevertheless manages to leave
her mark on the film and holds her own in each
of her scenes in the film. They are more than
ably supported by Mithun Chakraborty (playing
a character based on Dhirubhai’s mentor
and nemesis - Goenka) , who shows what a fine
actor he is given the right role and why he is
the recipient of three National Awards, Madhavan
and Vidya Balan even if the latter two suffer
from weakly sketched roles. Balan’s role
though well performed as mentioned earlier, adds
nothing to the film’s storyline. Of the
supporting cast Manoj Joshi and Arya Babbar stand
out.
Surprisingly one place where the film falters
is in its music and song picturizations, normally
Mani Ratnam’s forte. But then in his last
few films Mani has been getting more and more
abstract with his song picturizations, often alienating
them from the rest of his films. The music while
typical Rahman with some extremely complex orchestration
is one of those tracks where unlike a Roja,
Rangeela or Swades, one will have
to hear it repeatedly if the songs are to appear
familiar and catchy. To make things worse, the
songs are not well integrated into the main story
line nor are they spaced out well into the film,
yet another screenplay fault. And in spite of
some energetic dance steps, the songs seem to
lack in energy with some truly ordinary choreography.
The best tuned song is undoubtedly Tere Bina
and sadly it suffers from being placed really
badly in the flow of the film. And the less said
about the Bhang song or Mallika Sherawat’s
dancing the better. What a let down!
Technically again, the film fails to measure
up to a Mani Ratnam film. Sound cuts are jerky
in several places. Editing of the film could have
been tighter particularly in the second half.
Rajeev Menon’s cinematography is dazzlingly
brilliant at places (see the sequences of Aishwarya
on the bicycle as she runs away from home for
example) but inconsistent. The Turkey sequences
look hurriedly shot through as though the unit
had limited time at their disposal.
All in all average at best and a disappointment
from Mani Sir, but yes, still better than most
of the films you see on the Hindi screen today.
But then that isn’t saying much.
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