Sunday, February 04, 2007

Guru - Dream your Destiny

Yesterday, I went to watch the movie, Guru. It was a long wait since, I was planning to watch while I was in India itself, but, somehow never managed to get time to go to a theatre. Finally, I ended up watching the movie in CineWorld, UK.

The movie is very clearly the story of Dhirubhai Ambani. It is the saga of a man, who dared to dream – to dream big! Starting out as a failure in Maths, moving to Turkey to escape the brunt of his father’s cane, this man came back to create the biggest corporate house in India. He dared to go to the public when the banks and other traditional lenders closed doors. He competed, he fought, he bribed and toadied where necessary, but, he never gave up his dream and this is the story of the movie Guru.

Abhishekh Bacchan has done a very good job in potraying the role of this great industrialist. There are times when his lack of experience shows. Overall, his performance is amazing and there is definitely a trace of Big B in his demeanour.

Aishwarya is good in her role as the dedicated wife of the big man. Her role though does not have much meat in it. In fact, there is no big roles apart from Abhishekh. Madhavan as a reporter is good. Unfortunately, he has nothing much to do in the movie. Same is the case with Vidya Balan. Mithun though has redeemed himself as an actor. His role of the newspaper editor is quite respectable and surprisingly, quite convincing.

The songs are all misplaced and Mani Ratnam could take a leaf out of Ram Gopal Verma’s tactic and use them only for promotion. It is a bit silly to see the protagonist of Ambani being intoxicated with bhang and dancing with his wife when she’s just given birth to twins! Or to see two poor girls reciting a very soulful song to a dad, who’s lying in hospital after suffering from a paralytic stroke. I guess all people succumb to the bug of commercialism. Mani would do well to maintain the thin line that separates his movies from the crowd. The songs were definitely a put-off for me. Maybe, Mani should have watched Kannathil Muttamitthal to see how good he was in adding the musical effects to his movies..

A R Rahman is okay. Nothing too catchy or moving. Lyrics by Gulzar is good, but a bit too tough for the mere mortals to follow.

Rajiv Menon’s camerawork is sheer magic. From the lush greenery of Bagalkot, Karnataka to the congested suburbs of Mumbai, he’s shown that with a good camera, everything can be made to look vibrant, colourful and visually gratifying.

On the whole though, the movie is worth a watch. If nothing else, it teaches us the basic value of life – Dream big and no matter what, if you are convinced that it is worth living and fighting for, do not shirk behind, but, go ahead and achieve it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

hey akshay your review of the story, was really too good, i think you can very well take up the job of a movie reviewer for any indian news stations like NDTV man. My sincere request to you is to keep updatng your blog, i am a huge fan of your blog, and if you ever plan to write a book or something (serius!) i assure you will have lotsa buyers, and I would be the first one for sure.