Movie Review: Mani Ratnam's Guru

Let me start with the net-net: Guru is mediocre. If you want more juice, be my guest - read further and also watch the movie for what it's not worth.

I'll say (what for some reason what the newspapers hesitate to say) - it draws sufficient parallels with the life of businessman Dirubhai Ambani including his paralytic stroke. I endlessly amused myself by imagining Aishwarya Rai as the young Kokilaben Ambani (would she squirm or be thrilled?) - God bless. The movie is basically about the rise and rise of the protagonist Gurukant Desai who grows up in a village in post-independent Gujarat, drops out of school to start his career in Istanbul (where he formulates his ideas while watching Mallika Sherawat's ill-attempted trials at belly dancing), returns to start a business...nah...bijness against his school teacher-dad's wishes, scales up quickly breaking every rule (and law) in the book, stresses himself out and suffers a toggling paralytic stroke (meaning on some scenes it's there and on some, it's gone - just like that - for some scenes he needs Aishwarya's support as his voicebox and on the next, he can talk on his own - and by the time of climax, he's completely cured - and how?).

So that's that - a movie that had immense potential to be The Aviator. But director Mani Ratnam is not Martin Scorcese (would have loved him to be!) and Abhishek Bachchan is definitely not Leonardo DiCaprio. The distance between the two movies is too much despite the parallels in their storylines - both movies celebrate capitalism and entrepreneurship despite all else, both movies have the protagonist develop health issues and idiosyncratic tendencies, both movies fight against senseless legalities that cripple wealth-creation. Mr. DiCaprio is brilliant in everything that he did in The Aviator - his accent, his behavior, his facial expressions after the accident; Mr. Bachchan had a lot of opportunity to do the same and deliver an epic-like performance but he toggles - I always felt he was acting too much and trying too hard - not living the role. Aishwarya Rai continues her efforts as a mediocre actress with overwhelmingly stunning looks - her flickering big eyes, swaying thin body and cookie-cutter dialogues occupy her role. There's of course decent music by A.R. Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar and beautiful wide-angled camera work by Rajiv Menon which balances Mr. Ratnam's surprisingly poor performance as Guru's director and producer. Two big-toes down.