mokono
Still "getting into" Indian movies, so still not conformed to the excessive length and unbalanced focus into beautiful scenery and dramatic scenes to the loss of actual content.Still. The main story line is exactly its synopsis: a guy from a village manages to make the biggest firm in India, polyesters (and maybe something else, but it's irrelevant, he could be dealing in dirt as far as we know).His obstacles are usually dramatic old men giving him an opportunity to not "get bigger" or succeed in any other way, and he always makes it through simply by not accepting "no", and eventually things go his way, without any explanation or illustration.One of deepest comments one overhears here is when he decides to invest in polyester instead of cotton, instead of everything else. So he grabs opportunities that no one else sees. Good job.Also, his whole career is based on him being "Guru", or basically the stubborn brat who only knows to say he doesn't understand "no", that he comes from a village and that he wants to win. So there's a plot twist there, he enters the market with a partner, but being himself, ignores him until he can't be ignored anymore and just quits on his own. Later on, he starts a media campaign exposing the company's faults as revenge (I think, maybe different characters).This is actually the turning point. His father-in-law and ? decide to go against him because he used illegal methods to gain his competitive position. Their several generic dialogues were very *endearing* as the family split and played childish games in order to deliver the most dramatic "i'm gonna fight you until I win" monologue.Ah, yes, that's one of the major faults of the "dialogue", there's no discussion. Either it's a plain monologue, or it's a character accusing another who stays silent and makes dramatic eye contact until the end.To illustrate the best example, the plot twists somewhere here, as apparently the company did do a lot of illegalities, mainly avoiding tax (import and otherwise), manipulation of own share price and other things, which, in my humble opinion, whatever way you spin it, is wrong and bad for society as whole. (There's also a lot of bribing, but I can understand that much better.)So Guru-bai receives all these accusations, first from the only newspaper he couldn't buy, then from the actual government. So what is his answer? "I'm a poor man from a village and I managed to rise. You don't want me to, so you complain about all these things I did. I don't care because I did it for the common man, because I am the common man." So they give up on most of the accusations and he goes on doing his stuff. Great job, really. Brilliant. Couldn't ask for a more generic representation of business than this.Another classic, yet terrible, addition to the movie is the random addition of emotional scenes that actually are too artificial to spark any emotion. So besides the usual father who doesn't approve, there's the sister of the wife who always loves Guru and goes on to live a miserable life in a wheelchair (just to make Guru's enemy marry her out of pity or so) and then die when the action needed some spicing. Guru himself gets half his body paralyzed at the end, just to make his accusers seem even more evil. And all the love bits with Ash seemed fairly random. But I guess I enjoyed them more than the main story, so I'll avoid any comments.What I enjoyed most about the movie? Istanbul, definitely. The "turkish" dancer especially... But more seriously, the movie was very beautiful. Fake, but beautiful. "Enhanced reality", in Istanbul, the countryside and Bombay scenes were great to watch.But really, I want to watch a movie from India that respects its viewers, its content and topics.. and still be astoundingly beautiful and musical.I'm sure there has to be one out there...
Ezekiel-Cheever
Awful movie, one of the worst Hindi movies I have seen to date...Don't understand the logic of this movie: You can bribe and break the law but as long as you are successful and a big entrepreneur in the eye of the world it's all fine? A dubious patriotic movie without depth and intellectual stimulation and with an ill-construed storyline and irritating male-female role portrayal. Purely appealing to a currently prevalent "We are/can become the greatest" instinct. Nothing else. What good is the main character doing? Except for egotistical capitalism. And doesn't it become boring to always have those flat stereotypical hero male roles and those flat stereotypical supportive, homely female roles? If you liked Rang de Basanti, you may like this one too. It has a similar strange "the end justifies the means" morale, although Rang de Basanti is still better.
Chintan Trivedi
Meet India's most powerful man, screams the headlines. You want to believe the statement primarily because the man at the helm of affairs is none other than Mani Ratnam, one of the finest talents India has produced. Irrespective of how his films are received by the paying public, you cannot deny the fact that a Mani Ratnam film is special.As a story, GURU is tremendously inspiring and makes you feel all the more confident to encounter challenges and hurdles that may crop up in a journey called life. But by no means is GURU a documentary, as a section of the film industry/media would want us to believe. Sure, GURU chronicles several vital facets of an industrialist's life, but the marriage of enlightenment and entertainment is brilliantly executed here.A.R. Rahman's music is in sync with the film. 'Maiya Maiya' at the start of the film (Mallika Sherawat) is sizzling, while 'Barso Re' (Ash's introduction) and 'Tere Bina' are melodious to the core.
