with some compulsions i happened to watch this movie in shankarnag theatre by spending 150 Rs. Spending 150 Rs was the saddest part because i had spent almost same amount for 2 'large' vodka in nagarjuna, just before the movie without which i would have gone mad in theatre. Two contrasting experiences (drinking vodka and watching Guru) .
This movie…. as usual hyped up, like its contemporaries ( like movies directed by Mr.Karan Johar or like RDB [:D]). The movie clearly upholds maNiratnam's management skills(note : he is a management graduate before a director). Seems like he has used all the management principles he has learnt to promote the film.
I remember one forward which was flooding my mail box. It was about the attitudes of the characters in this movie... But after watching the movie , I think.. either the movie is junk or the mail.. since they are not mutually exclusive, by transitivity rule ( or by some xyz logical rule) both are junk...
If I have to describe the first half of the movie, i can do it in one word. First half is "bakwaas".. (except for some stupendous cinematography in some songs).
A minute to go for the interval, there comes Mr. Chota bachan's dailogue..(I do not remember the complete dialogue) ye kapaDe mehanat se paaya hai...... guru se laDne ke liye guru bankar aaO.. kyOnki guru Ek hee hai...
Even though my hindi is decent enough and knew the meaning of the word 'mehanat' , after seeing the first half of the movie and listening to the dialogue, i was confused and later clarified the meaning of mehanat with my friend.. (mani has failed to show any ‘mehanat’ in the movie)
I still kept wondering what this "kyonki guru Ekee hai" meant.. i could not control my laughter (Ohohohohohoohoohohoho).. and i was screaming "swalpa T M" mai bhi guru hoo....
Hmmmm…..if i could describe the first half of the movie in a word the second half was no better.. but not to deny that had little stuff…..there was also some news around that this movie is about one of the biggest industrialists MR Dir ambaani..
In the second half , our hero builds numerous factories,he does all kinds illegal activities, he bribes politicians for getting favours, he converts non convertibile debentures into shares,collects lots of money from public.
The media (maadhavan) does its best to expose all his misdeeds. Finally our hero is busted, and a case is registered against the hero..
A share holders’ meeting happens in an open ground when it is raining.. (what a scene man!!! muhahahhahahahaa) .The people there abuse our hero for eating up their money, interestingly the same people later applaud our hero after the court scene, about which i will be speaking, shortly.
This court scene is the climax.. this goes on for 3-4 days.. The first three days our hero saves all his energy by not speaking….(i think such great ideas can only occur to people like Arindam and maNi …. They both can actually jointly direct a movie...) and these 3 days the case does not seem to be in favour of our hero at all….
Then the last day!! Mr. Mani has tried hard to give an ayn rand style ending to the movie, but he has failed terribly . Our hero is given 5 mins to argue ( final 5 mins of torture to the audience) , who finishes it in 4 and half mins( giving 30 seconds bonus).. and because of which he gets a standing ovation in the court hall but here in the theatre viewers enthused that film is getting over, they give "running" ovation. After our hero's lecture, out of 14 cases, 12 cases cleared.. our hero is acquitted.. This scene is no worse than vijayakant's scene in which he gives "shock to current itself "or the baalaNNa's train stopping scene or Rajni's style of splitting a bullet with a knife and killing 2 villians with the same bullet.
MaNiratnam has tried to capture a dozen issues at one go.. some of them include loyalty(this is not problem), unemployment, poverty, globalization, a little of objectivism theory also.. but he does not do justice to any of these issues.. towards the end of the movie one cannot figure out what the movie is all about (only mallikaa sheravat's dance ramains in the mind... :D )
I think abhishek's acting is pretty good, which is the saving grace for the movie.
I am still wondering what aishwarya rai was actually doing in the movie.. There is no scope for people to complain about her over acting…. Thanks to maNi... since there is no scope for aishwarya to act!!!! But MaNiratnam could have used some puppet instead of her and could have saved crores..
But what will he lose?? "yaardO duDDu.. yallamman jaatre!!! "
Mithun chakraborthy, Madhavan, Vidya balan have done good work in their limited roles.
About the songs….one song is good.. sorry two!! Aishwary's barsO is also good... the first one is mallika's bar dance. There is one really stupid song when the twins are born to MR hero.. "Ek lelo.. Ek muft..." maNi has tried to introduce humour into the movie through this song which ultimately turns out to be stupid and torturous.
I hope this movie would not be sent across to the Oscars... I was stunned when I read that the dirty commercial movie RDB was sent to Oscars, Later badly kicked out. There are n number indian art movies, which are wonderfully directed by some great directors like gireesh kaasaravaLLi ( there are many more) which can be sent to oscars. I fail to understand how they send such hopeless movies to oscars...
finally, mEre baap kehtaa the.. hindi filme mat dEkhna bETa... paisa kharch hO jaayEgaa.. dhimaak karaab hOga!! maine dEkha!! aur ye review likha...