Guru'
UK Rated: 12A
Runtime: 162min 6secs
Tagline: Villager. Visionary. Winner.
Director: Mani Ratnam

Plot Outline
Not quite what the exact translation of the title suggests, or is it?

Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) strives for great success, against the more conservative wishes of his father and many that he meets. His zeal to improve himself and his country means he is metaphorically not adverse to kicking down doors that do not open for him.

After becoming the emperor of the Polyester industry and thus the leader of the fabric share market, Guru Bhai asks his loyal share holders, 'Banaana chaahte ho Hindustan ki sabse badi company?' (translation: "Do you want to create India's largest company?"). An encore follows.

Manik Das Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty) a newspaper publishing owner, was the one man whom Guru considered as his father. Even though they respect each other personally, their ideologies begin to clash as the company expands and flourishes.

Next stop is a petroleum chemicals factory, by this point Guru has mastered the art of using hook & crook to make the influential ministers and politicians support him all the way. The newspaper publisher Manik Das Gupta and his firebrand journalist Shyam (R. Madhavan) invite him & declare an open war letting him know what they plan on doing. Hereon they expose many irregularities in the functioning style of Guru Bhai. It would seem however there is no stopping this man who hears no declinations & loves to be on the bright side of success. So as the war between Guru and the media continues as they desperately try to strip away the success that is dear to him, at this point he finds solace in his wife Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai) who is the pillar of support that always stands by him in the biggest of crisis. Apart from her there are only a few select loyal men who belonged to him for reasons more than mere business.

Though his focus remains strong, the breaking relationship between him 7 his father-figure, plus the evil persona exposure does hurt his public image. As it blows out of proportion and his share prices begin to drop, a trial upon his ways comes to surface, many of his shareholders sell bringing him down further. The closure of the case brings us to the climax. The end comes as a question to all his shareholders once more ... "Do you want to create India's largest company?"

Review:
The above synopsis is merely a synopsis, the depths of the relationships between Guru and the rest of the characters is one of the stronger points not covered by this. The way we see this Guru-bhai progress from a stubborn child who failed his exams and decides to go abroad for work opportunities, to when he succeeds abroad & decides that his talent is a waste abroad & he should take it back to his old town. We see the character grow in front of our eyes. the admiration of others around him & where the loyalties of his key few began is all covered.

When he finds a friend in Manikdas in his time of struggle, we see the father-son love in the way they interact. A lot of the dialogue around here is clear straight away as important. When Manikdas tells him that he has a way of speaking with much honesty and that he should never lose this - we sense already what is coming ahead, though we don't want it to. The way Guru's empire comes about is an inspiration to anyone who wants to achieve something in life.

Right up to the point of intermission, whereby the open war between the trading tycoon Guru & his father-figure publisher is brought to surface, I was thinking to myself. Awesome - 9 out of 10, Unfortunately, the latter half loses lustre a little. A lack of tied up loose ends lets it down some & then there is the climax which is inspiring yet far from realistic & the message of the film becomes somewhat unclear.

Multiple Spoiler Alert: Mani Ratnam's previous ventures have had strong and clear messages in the past, it's a good thing when you can take it away and think about it after the show, but when dealing with the basic ethics of what is right and what is not, perhaps he should be clearer about his message. Let's go back to the earlier examples:

Bombay
It was about the hindu-Muslim issues during the riots of the early years of the last decade, these riots are bad & we should embrace all the cultures within our country for we all are the people of it. - Message Clear

Dil Se (From The Heart)
It was about extremists and how they too have a humane side, they're beliefs in the system have been diminished and it is the root of this that needs attention, the media can help by listening to what they have to say before they feel forced to take actions that even they would rather not take. Last scene: the explosion that brings together Amarkant Verma of All-India Radio (Shahrukh Khan) & Meghna the extremist on her suicide mission (Manisha Koirala) makes the message clear. Unfortunately many die having these strong extremist beliefs that merely needed to be heard earlier on and many die trying to stop the attacks they make for the attention. Listen & try to fix it.

Yuva (The Youth)
In a twisted world of corruption, bribery & a fight for power, many lose faith, many lose hope, but the correct way to fix it is to join politics and fight from the core. The last scene: The youngsters manage to get into the parliament and the end is merely the beginning, but this message is clear.

Guru - The last scene reflects the first scene, "my father would always say I won't succeed, but I showed him, I made the biggest corporation known to this country & I'll make more of it, because I am you, you being the people of this country & together we can do it all". Now the message here is not a bad one by any measure, but it has much room for misinterpretation, especially after what we have seen him do. He won the courts over by telling them that due to the inappropriate bribery, taxes et al, he had to work around them all, though he was doing it for his fellow people (the shareholders), he still did break laws (Tax Evasion, Production without Permits, etc).

So its easy to misinterpret this as, do what you have to do above & below the law but get where you want to be. Inspiring but not necessarily correct from a moral stand point. There is also the possible take of don't listen to your father, he may not know best aspect, though I totally agree personally, its not our culture. Our culture is to respect our parents even higher than the respect we give to God. That said I emphasise this is room for misinterpretation & not the message given. ... End Spoiler

Performances:
Abhishek Bachchan takes to this role like a fish to water. It would be no overstatement to say it rates as one of his best performances to date. His character shows the drive and power all the way to the very last scene. It certainly helps that his character is well penned and shows a huge scope of change & maturity over time. This film belongs to him hands down.

Though forgivable with the subject of the film in mind, it's a shame though that most of the cast are overshadowed hugely by the presence of such a strong character as the centre. The role of his wife by Aishwarya Rai and an even smaller part of Vidya Balan reflect this. Neither are bad at all, but they have little screen time & their characters don't have much scope to develop a rapport with the viewer due to this.

That being said Mithun and R. Madhavan as the media who believe in printing the truth as opposed to selling out to the rich or the influential. They make an impact. You relate with them & respect them through & through, just as Guru does. In this Abhishek driven film the fact that they with their limited scope really do shine is entirely based on their performances I'm glad to say.

Music:
There is no denying the music of A. R. rehman has historically been an asset to the films of Mani Ratnam, that said in the last couple of instances (Guru inclusive), the sountrack hasn't been chart breaking songs that you listen to in your car on loop for a couple of weeks like say we did back when Dil Se and Bombay released in the 90's. The more recent soundtracks are not bad, in fact I'd go towards suggesting that they are more like a background score than an actual soundtrack even though they are songs. You can let most of them pass as the theme of the film.

A foolish error that I felt the UK distributors should rectify for all future films is that the songs have no subtitles. This enrages me. To a total outsider who my come along & give a Bollywood flick a go, the one thing that stands out to them as different is that our films have songs. Now I've had many a discussion with people explaining that the songs in most cases add to the mood & feel of a film. The film is incomplete without them. The lyrics of each song are just as important, as is their placing.

How are people supposed to accept this if we take away the subtitles temporarily. I do wonder what the idiots are thinking. They've subtitled the whole film to cater for a larger audience, why o why do such a half-hearted job of it. It's like pointing a finger at the songs saying, yeah they do stick out don't they, because its the only part we won't let you understand. I don't need the subtitles for myself yet this just really REALLY gets on my nerves.

Choreography wise I'm hesitant to say it's nothing special, I mean its good to see Aishwarya doing a bit of Classical Kathak dance, its rather refreshing that we still have an actress that can dance in such a way, but that aside - no big item number that stands out a mile. Some of the scenery is nice In Barso Re Megha (The rain has arrived) but the final cut of it just came off a little amateur. Perhaps this can be blamed on bad editing, perhaps.

Overall Impressions:
The message given of keeping head-strong and not allowing others to tell you what you can & can't do is still crystal clear and comes off extremely strong, so even with the above nitpicking at possible misinterpretations possible, the impact of the film wins me over.

If you're looking for inspiration towards success - Very Highly Recommended (7.5 out of 10)