Mani Ratnam's Guru

The release of a new film by directors like Mani Ratnam is an important thing for film-buffs like me, and I always try to watch them first day first show. When Guru was released, I decided to watch it first day. I wasn’t too sure about the first show part, thanks to the fearsome expression I imagined my boss would have if he found out, and also because of an unpleasant incident I got reminded of, an incident that happened many years earlier, at the beginning of my career, where I noticed my boss sitting two rows ahead of me on the first day first show of a Rajinikanth movie, on a day I had forged illness in order to watch the movie. He luckily did not notice me, but the incident still shakes me up a bit whenever I think of it.

So 7 PM it was. I got quite a bit of response from colleagues and ex-colleagues for the movie, and finally, 24 of us went to the movie. We left quite early to escape the traffic…

I sense, apart from the impatient shuffling of feet and twiddling of thumbs, the whooshing sound of a tomato in mid-flight, hurtling towards me. Let me not digress any further, cut the crap and get straight to the review.

Guru is the rags-to-riches story of Gurukant Desai [Abhishek Bachchan], the son of a village headmaster in rural Gujarat, who grows to become one of India’s biggest industrialists. After flunking a grade in school, Guru decides to drop out of school and go to Turkey to earn a living. He goes to Turkey, works there for seven years selling petroleum cans, and decides to return to India to start his own business, despite getting a huge promotion and pay hike.

Things do not go as planned in India for him, thanks to a shortage in capital. While pondering the means to raise the capital to start his business, his friend tells him that his dad can’t lend him any money because his dad is saving up dowry money for his sister Sujatha’s [Aishwarya Rai] wedding. Guru gets married to Sujatha with the sole intention of using the dowry money to start his business, and moves to Mumbai to do so.

Things again do not work out, because he first has to get a license from a trade union which is apprehensive about giving out licenses to newcomers. Thanks to a chance meeting with Manikdas Gupta [Mithun Chakraborty], a newspaper editor, this problem gets sorted out after news of the union’s unfair attitude to aspiring businessmen is published in Manikdas Gupta’s paper, The Independent.

A few hiccups later, Guru starts off his business. Over time, his business flourishes, so does his relationship with Manikdas Gupta and his grand-daughter Meenu [Vidya Balan], who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, and so does his reputation for resorting to any means, legal or illegal, to ensure that his business grows.

An incident occurs, which incurs the wrath of Manikdas Gupta, as a result of which he turns against Guru. Manikdas Gupta then sics rookie journalist Shyam Saxena [Madhavan] on Guru with the intention of bringing him down by exposing his scams. The rest of the movie details Shyam Saxena’s (and Manikdas Gupta’s) attempts to bring down Guru, and the outcome of this.

One good aspect of this film is the relationship between Guru and Manikdas Gupta. Guru considers Manikdas Gupta his father-figure, and the latter almost thinks of the former as his son, but when Guru’s actions oppose Manikdas’ values, they take on each other. But throughout all this, they never lose the love or respect they have for each other.

Coming to the performances, Abhishek Bachchan is Gurukant Desai. The film belongs to him alone, and he makes the most of the opportunity by delivering a powerful performance. He falters a bit while playing the old Gurukant Desai, but is nevertheless very convincing.

Mithun Chakraborty surprises everyone, who is more used to his forgettable movies of the 80’s than his art-house movies, by playing Manikdas Gupta with an effortlessness and subtlety quite uncommon in Hindi cinema these days, where loud body language and jarring dialogue-delivery are the order of the day.

Aishwarya Rai surprisingly gives a decent performance, but doesn’t look very convincing as an old woman, thanks to the sparsely-sprinkled wrinkles in her make-up.

Vidya Balan as Meenu is, sadly, wasted in a role where she has just a handful of scenes with opportunity to showcase her talents, but she nevertheless lights up the screen whenever she’s in it.

Madhavan plays Shyam Saxena, who is Meenu’s love interest and Gurukant Desai’s nemesis, but doesn’t have much of a role to play, except a few casually and carelessly thrown-in scenes where he’s trying to get evidence against Gurukant Desai. He, however, has lost a lot of weight for this role and looks many years younger, as a result of which many girls I know drool like newborns at the sight of him (maybe if I too… ah, but I digress again…).


The music by A R Rahman is typical of his music in other movies, meaning that the songs grow on you. But these songs don’t add value to the movie, and therefore end up interrupting the flow of the movie. The picturisation of the songs too are not at par with those of Mani Ratnam’s previous movies.

Mani Ratnam is, without doubt, one of India’s finest filmmakers today who raises the bar for other directors by making good movies, and Guru is no doubt a good movie, but it is certainly not his best. People who have seen only his Hindi movies may disagree with me on this point, but I’m sure that those who’ve watched all or most of his movies, especially his best ones - Nayagan (an indianized adaptation of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, with a brilliant performance by Kamal Hassan); Mouna Ragam (a very mature take on the discovery of love after marriage); Dalapathi (an adaptation of the Mahabharatha, which focuses only on the friendship between Duryodhana and Karna); Roja (a beautiful adaptation of the Satyavan & Savitri myth, set in militant-infested Kashmir); and Kannathil Muthamittal (an adopted girl’s search for her mother in war-torn Sri Lanka) - would whole-heartedly concur with me. One thing that Mani Ratnam should work on improving is his movie ending, which is compromised, unrealistic, or, in other words, a bummer.


On the whole, the movie is good compared to all the excreta dished out in the guise of films by Bollywood these days, but bad, because it’s directed by Mani Ratnam, who has made and is capable of making better films. I only hope he makes enough money to continue making films and not enough, so he can notice the flaws in the movie…

Overall, a 3 on 5.

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© Guru Smaran