Mani, money and many more!. Review on Guru (2007)

Admittedly I am a fan of the man(i). the first time a movie opened with a kid doing a'slide' on whie sand(nayagan) I was.

went back to watch his  mounaragam which left one stumped in .and of cours his nayagan had already bowled one over . .and so the man held forth.gettanjali.dalpathi. .and the entire nation noticed after roja.   .he continued with some disasters(thiruda thiruda, dil se) and then came trumps with the refreshingly simple Alaypayudhe.

somehwere he got ambitious.and decided the multi starrer- yuva/ayudha ezhuthu.A bilingual, it had a firing from all cylinders star cast(both in tamil and hindi). He added roshomon esque pic-in-pic technique to talk of youth in poticics.and it fell flat. people blamed on the technique, the seriousness of the subject.yet one was  unanimous mani could do no wrong.

and one awaited for guru.well, I have watched it.disappointment is the word. is it bad? well no. but nothing great. mani felt before in an interview that he had moved from his mouna ragam and nayakan days in the past 20-years. well, the best(or worst) review of guru is that he hasnt - or hasnt manged to.   the movie is nothing but a thread of a story based on the travails of a humble-small towner from the country side of gujarat to the corporate clubs of colaba. its one sided, biased and not well heeled.

characters jump in and off the story. the climax - a sort of ratification for our prtotogonist- is one sided aimed at making the viewer get angry at the honest newspaper reporter. the reason? The much-maligned system demanded that our man salute and bribe wherever necessary and he did it. Similar to the famous nayakan line of " .if it does good to four people, then its not  bad".our Guru goes all over his business rivals, so that the cab wallab in mumbai could get his 3 daughters married off.

so what does mani mean- we gag the corrput and then go after mani. Deewar('pehle us addmi ka sign.) anyone?

abhi is good. for it perhaps is the only rounded character. his scenes before marriage and with his trusted friend are natural

. rai - aby jodi maybe oh-cute in real life - but in movies they are boring.

and why ash? she gets 2.15 lines to speak.   and please mani should stop recylcing his own old movies and show heroines dancing in rains to convey they are free spirited girls in love with nature(or some such blab!- his own mouna ragam, gitanjali had this.and were repeated in khushi and umpteen films)

vidya balan is shown as a terminal paraplegic to get some sentiments.(Mani or Ekta kapoor?) the ribald song on  bhang,  after the couple get twins is not defintely a high point .David Dhawan anyone?. A song on the  sentiment of "take one and u get one free " doesnt suit mani ratnam .

and whats with ARR- from whole casstte full of hummable songs our man has not produced even one thats in the same class as Roja-mumbai  or even yuva. etc. the only redeeming factor-

mithun, has given a performance worth remembering, in a non art film. and how can I forget Mani's traditional item number .this time on mallika; 10 minutes into the movie u have this.bad editing mani and a bad song(not chayya .defintely).

and why did madhavan choose this movie? probably because he must have been in the middle of umpteen flops before this. but now since he had 2 back to abck hits in tamil, he must be having second thoughts. or will he still maintain that a walk on part in mani movie is still worth it? sorry maddy- chose yr scripts and not just the directors . like aamir .

mani saar, sorry . probably its the wanting to take hindi.whenever u have stuck to tamil u ahve given delgihtful stuff.not necessarily box office success but good stuff. so, is there a lesson here.?.of course, we await yr lajjo.