> Guru

Director
Mani Ratnam

Cast:
Abhishek Bachchan - Gurukant Desai
Aishwarya Rai - Sujata
Mithun Chakraborty - Manikdas Gupta
R. Madhavan - Shyam Saxena
Vidya Balan - Meenakshi 'Meenu'
Arya Babbar - Jignesh
Mallika Sherawat -Jumpa (Guest Appearance )


Mani Ratnam, the maker of hits like Roja, Nayakan, and Yuva, to name a few films, has a yet another HIT in Guru.The movie is about Gurukant Desai,a villager in Gujarat,to becoming Gurubhai,a business tycoon and the movie is loosely based on the life of one of Indian corporate history's most controversial men,Dhirubhai Ambani.

It all begins from a small village of Idar in Gujarat,where a young boy,ambitious since birth dreams of moving out of the clutches of the village and making it making it big in the world but he has his father Master Kantilal, the headmaster of the village school,who tells him that his dreams arent goin to be fullfilled and he will reach no where.But a determinant Gurukant Desai sets out to Istanbul where he works hard and after a brief stint there,he comes back to his village to start a ‘bijness’ of his own.But to fulfill his dream he needed capital so for that he marries Sujata for a hefty dowry abt Rs.25,000,and sets out to the City of Money & Oppurtunities,Bombay to start his enterprise, in partnership with his brother-in-law,Jignesh [Arya Babbar].

But it is only then that he realises that the cloth trading ‘bijness’ is a ruled by a handful of rich and influential people who don't believe in giving opportunities to new players but despite hardships and roadblocks put up by his rivals he triumps over every hurdle and becomes a genius and great friend among everyone.In his path to success he was helped by Manik Dasgupta aka Nanaji [Mithun da]who runs his newspaper "Swatantra" & who stands for everything that is moral and right ,helps him crusading against the influnetial.Manikdas's granddaughter Meenu[Vidya Balan] was Guru's Gem of Eye.

After this there weas no looking back for Gurubhai and from small trader he became one of the leading industrialist in the country.He started a company called Shakti Trading ,with the capital raised by a public issue and climbs the ladder of success at a furious pace.He uses all means--fair and unfair, to reach the top.

Guru Bhai asks his loyal share holders, “Banna chahte ho Hindusthan ki sabse badi company”.An encore follows & after that he sets up a petro chemicals factory for which once again he uses corruption, bribery, compromises to make the ministers come on his side.

But when his mentor & father figure Manik Dasgupta learns that Guru's means to make it big are not right and illegal.Then He along with the Editor of his newspaper & firebrand journalist, Shyam [Madhavan], decide to expose Guru's unjust ways & expose many irregularities in the functioning style of Guru Bhai.

But inspite of all this opposition & media attack against the functioning of Shakti Trading,Gurubhai continues to rise.But its all untill finally an enquiry commision is setup to look into the irregularities committed by him and his companies and this ignites a large public anger against him,which he cudnt handle and it results in Gurubhai getting a paralytic stroke.

The climax of the film is a courtroom drama, where Gurubhai is summoned before the inquiry commission and how he argues his case and the reasons why he had to resort to such unjust and illegal ways to do 'bijness'.One of the best endings and at one point U mite just feel that is it really Abhishek or Amitabh...

Direction
Mani Ratnam,one of the best directors in whole of India,just sums up with the movie tat why he is the Guru... .He packs a solid punch into GURU that is enough for U to be amazed the whole of 2hr 45min.

Screenplay
Abhishek Bachchan,I think just gave his Dad a run for his money especially in the last 20 minutes....He just completely metamorphised from a sharp teenager in turkey to opportunistic and intelligent business man who knows wat he needs to do best.His performance in GURU is better than his till-best work in YUVA.
Aishwarya Rai too stuned me with her powerful performance(I guess first time).She really plays the role of the wife who is always by the side of her husband and also take the mention of the electrifying chemistry between Abhishek and Aishwarya.
Mithun Da,Our veteran Disco Dancer,delivered a stunning performance from start to end,upholding his values even when his Son like Guru was using unfair means.A solid character played...
R.Madhavan & Vidya Balan played their small part in the film with some good & confident performance,though Madhavan's role could've been longer..

Music
When music of a movie is given by A.R. Rahman,then it sure cant go wrong.'Maiya Maiya' at the start of the film with Mallika Sherawat scorching the screen,while 'Barso Re' marks a strak contrast into the rural India and then is melodious 'Tere Bina' sung by Rahman himself.Though the song "Ek Lo Ek Muft" could have been avoided.
But the best which I liked was the Background score and it was sure topnotch...."Gurubhai Gurubhai"....

Cinematography
Couldnot complete without mentioning abt the film's cinematography & it surely was of international quality.1950's Bombay look was complete spellbounding.

Overall,Guru is one of the finest films to come out of the Hindi film industry Aand encourages you to never giveup on ur dreams and strive to fullfill them..


RATING:10/10