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The first major release of the year, Mani Ratnam’s Guru is, well is a major film. Guru is grand and big like its protagonist. It describes the life of a common man who dares to dreams and achieves his dream by whichever way possible. Mani Ratnam is known for making film on real life character. The character of Gurukant Desai has a strong resemblance to Dhirubhai Amban but that only in terms of the story. All resemblance ends after that.

Gurukant Desai is a larger than life figure, an enigma. A person above law, power and people, who lives for his dream. The dream is not to earn money but to be big, big in what he does. Be it by becoming a major player in his business or starting from scratch against all odds. He lives for his success.

The film tracks his ups and downs from his childhood to his old age when he commands and lead a big business empire, the friends and enemies he makes and his love who stands by him. Gurukant Desai runs and he runs to succeed. Brimming with idea and a strong desire to be someone, he goes to Turkey to work there. He works in a oil company and then saves enough money to come back to India He marries a girl from his village because her father promises a huge dowry. He needs the money to start a new business. He wants to trade in cotton but is not allowed because of licenses. He meets a newspaper editor who stands by him to get the license to trade. After that there is no looking back. He works hard, manipulates men and power to start and grow a company.

The rise is phenomenal. He sees opportunities and takes risk where other fear to venture. The editor, Manikdas Gupta who sees him as his son and mentor is the first one to expose him with his editor supporting him. The second half of the film focuses on this fight. Guru’s wife Sujata supports him and stands by him at every problem, even when her own brother leaves him.

Manikdas Gupta and his editor, Madhavan almost succeed in bringing Guru down. The climax is how he fights back a paralysis and a government to succeed in his goal.

Guru is focused solely on Gurukant Desai so much so that his ability to manipulate those in power and the corruption he promotes is looked as a positive aspect of his character. Manikdas Gupta and Madhavan who wow to fight him just to expose his unethical way become villains. Was it knowingly or unknowingly, may be the question Mani Ratnam would want to answer. Guru is not a white hero in shining armor. He is a person who is one among us trying to succeed when a lot many people do not want him to succeed. To succeed he would use any way possible. “Guru” ensures that the hero or the main character wins, be it right or wrong does not matter.

Guru’s wife Sujata is supportive of her husband. The relation starts with doubt but then she supports him and stands by him all her life.

Guru is a journey of a man hungry for success and thankfully avoids making any statement or judging him. It just chronicles his life from scratch to success.

Mithun Chakraborty plays Manikdas Gupta, the editor of the newspaper who wants to see Guru down for the sole reason to oppose his unethical ways. This would be Mithun’s real comeback role. He plays the editor with conviction depicting the love-hate relationship with Guru. A treat to watch him.

Madhavan is in a very small role of the editor of the newspaper. He plays a very thankless role and only job seem to marry Vidya Balan who pays a dying Meenu, who is Mithun’s grand daughter and also Guru’s object of affection. He is totally wasted in the role.

Vidya Balan role as Meenu is confusing. She plays a girl on a wheel chair, who adores Guru. She has a disability and she neither contributes nor moves the story forward. She is totally wasted in the movie.

Aishwarya Rai plays the better half of Guru, his wife Sujata. She is ok in the role of Sujata but the second half is where she almost matches with Abhishek Bachchan. Her chemistry with Abhishek Bachchan is better than their earlier films.

Abhishek Bachchan is Gurukant Desai, arrogant and hungry for power. His character undergoes transformation from being a happy, jolly young man to a big businessman with a sense of humor. He play Guru to perfection. It is difficult to imagine any other actor playing Guru and you tend to ignore the fact that in many scenes, he acts like Amitabh Bachchan even playing the angry young man at the climax. At one time, I remembered Amitabh Bachchan from Agnipath. The same intensity and the same dialog delivery.

Mani Ratnam wanted to make a big movie about a big industrialist and he makes it. The screenplay is tight and the movie is not boring even though its more than 2 and half hours long. But then this is not Mani Ratnam’s best work. The movie is good but still it lacks the intensity of other. You watch the movie without any attachment to the characters except Abhishek Bachchan and that is because of his strong performance. The climax is a big let down. The ending speech should have been more hard hitting but fails to make any impact. The efforts and story is good but then you don’t feel the excitement to see the movie as a fast paced drama and that is where the movie and Mani Ratnam fails. It is definitely one of the better movie in recent times but still lacking somewhere.

A R Rehman composes good music but something has to be done about Gulzar’s lyrics. I could not understand the lyrics of some of the songs. Was it because of A R Rehman’s music or the lyrics. I guess it was more of the music.

At the end, a movie worth watching for the performance, the direction, the camera angles and beautiful locales but its gaining sympathy for a man who would do anything for success.

Rating : 7/10