ManiRatnam, according to me is one of the best filmmakers in our country.
Guru is another tale from the master himself. Obviously we all know that the film is a take on the father of the Indian capital market and the creator of wealth unheard of! The film explores about the man and the very creation of wealth by him!
Gurukant desai is an ambitous young man. He leaves his village, his family in Gujrat, against the wishes of his head master father, to work in Turkey. He returns to start his own business in india. He gets married to a girl who can bring him enough dowry to start that business. He works under all odds to start his own unit of manufacturing 'kela silk'.HIs wife Aiswarya Rai is with him as his support throughout the film. The man grows the scale of his production by bribing everyone who came in his way from the press to the bureaucrats. He smuggled machinery,evaded taxes, and broke every rule to march ahead, and all in the name of creating wealth for others.
Well, that is where, the moral ambivalence of the film, could be the reason where it fails. Or, on second thoughts that's where it could work, because it leaves the entire question very subjective in the people's mind. They have to decide whether the character was doing right or wrong.
The first half of the film is pacier, with a strong chemistry between Ash and AB ad also his rise from a teenage to a industrial icon, the second half looses the pace with the subplot of Vidya balan and Madhaven adding breaks to the main plot. Instead if the screenplay had been able to put a hurdle in the path of guru with Mithun OR WITH with Madhaven as a more powerful charactertrying to make his life even worse[ which is not justified] it could have derived more sympathy for Guru and probably justified his means of creating and manipulating the system. Also second half looks a lot edited [patchy] with no transitions due to what ever reasons.
The cinematography, framing and music by Mr. Rahman add to the story, though I think Rahman has definitely given far better music in Roja , Yuva etc [ Yuva being one of my favourite top fifty films] Dialogues provide humour but lack the depth which was essentail for Mithun's and Guru's character. The work on language for a period film like this could have added to the story the way they did for Lagaan or Omkara!
But despite that its a take on a fresh subject, a biography, if I may say and definitely a dekko for the sake of filmmaking rather for Abhishek Bacchan for he is really good in the role!
