Guru - Movie Review (Paisa Waste!)

In art, more than in anything else, if something can't be done well, it's not worth doing it at all. This includes the art of movies. In all other aspects of life, a mediocre product might be tolerable. But to witness bad art is demoralizing, dispiriting, disappointing.

Mani Ratnam's latest movie Guru is such a disappointment. It is hard to believe that the dull and mediocre Guru, is made by the same director who made the tour de force masterpiece, Nayagan. Where are the clear storyline, tight script, crisp dialogs, which are the key elements of a good Mani Ratnam movie?

Guru is supposed to have been inspired by the rags-to-spectacular-riches story of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, who founded and headed what was/is probably the richest, most powerful and influential corporate house in India, Reliance Industries Limited. There is certainly a great story to be told about his life. Unfortunately, Guru fails to tell that story effectively.

The movie's narrative just limps along, without touching our heads or our hearts. We don't see the main character Guru do anything extraordinarily smart or ingenious or innovative... In fact, forget extraordinary, we don't see him doing anything even ordinarily smart or ingenious or innovative. Yet, we are supposed to believe that he built this big business empire just like that. Since when did Mani Ratnam's movies get dumbed down so much?

Nor do we emotionally care about what happens to Guru in the movie. He suffers a stroke, he is harassed by a judicial inquiry. Do we care too much about that? Do we feel sorry for him? Do we root and cheer him onto recovery and success? Not really. Not being touched emotionally is a very big failure in a Mani Ratnam movie. I am used to his movies having us empathize with the main characters and their struggles, almost effortlessly. Guru fails miserably in that.

The story lacks head or heart. The script meanders loosely. All the dialogs sound phoney and lack soul. We could expect at least the dialogs to be crisp and hard-hitting in Mani Ratnam's Tamil movies (mostly written by Mani Ratnam himself or his wife, Suhasini). This movie lacks even that.

This is probably Abhishek Bacchan's best performance in a movie. Unfortunately, his best performance is not much to write home about. Aishwarya Rai's performance lends ample fuel to all her critics - especially the ones who have been claiming for a decade that she is no more than a plastic doll in movies. Yes, Aishwarya Rai has been acting in movies for 10 years now. Her first movie was also directed by Mani Ratnam, and it is called Iruvar, release on Jan 14th, 1997. Exactly, 10 years later, we see her another Mani Ratnam movie, and it is unfortunate that this movie and her performance in it is such a dud. There are a couple of scenes in which she is alright - sobbing in the train, her face in the foreground and Abhishek's in the background, after being abandoned by the guy she intended to run away with; and, one or two scenes as a domestic housewife. Otherwise, it's a dud. Madhavan and Vidya Balan have given good performances in supporting roles. Mithun in the role of an old newspaper owner is also good.

A R Rahman's music does not sound like Rahman's music at all. It is jarring. Gulzar's lyrics did not seem to have anything special in them either.

There are some very successful writers. When they reach a certain stage of extreme commercial success, they stop doing all the hardwork. They have teams of disciples who do the work for them, all the research and the writing, and these successful writers lend their names to the covers of such books. Watching Guru made me wonder if this whole movie was made by such mediocre disciples of Mani Ratnam and A R Rahman, while putting up the more popular names in the credits.

You may safely give this movie a miss. It's paisa waste!