Istanbul, Mithun, the 50’s Mumbai, Cinematography, and the Abhi-Mani chemistry, all this make the movie worth watching.
The first half is a fantastic build up and keeps the mind wanting for more, the intro to the characters is well done(especially Aish), details of period-seetings are well-taken care off. The scenes of India are poignant, feel good, makes one believe truly it is great to be born here. The Istanbul sequences and the initial charisma shown in Guru’s character is joyful. But like many hindi movies- don’t ask too many questions just absorb and enjoy.
The second half suddenly looses ground, but it is not anyones fault, that is just the way 90% of Bollywood seems to happen these days- though one would have expected Mani to hold ground.
Somehow the big-picture gets lost is the mini-movies:
vidya-madhavan-movie,
the righteous-news-paper vs. corrupt biz-man movie,
the-building-of-an-empire movie, and
making-of-a-hero movie.
The whole was smaller than the sum of the parts for sure. One would expect a’message’ but there wasn’t one clearly left behind, at the end it only seemed like a vanilla story(a good one though).
Abhi is very Bacchan-esque in his delivery(almost copy-catish, at times) but a great job nevertheless. It would be tough for too many others on the Bollywood stage to carry it off. Aish looks best when unadorned, well supported. The movie is not about Abhi-Aish and it does well to stay that way. Mithun, Vidya - SHINE all the way. Very well played and very well shown.
If the movie was made pre-India-Poised(courtesy TOI) it may have carried more weight, people at this stage of India see many Guru’s around them and it is not bigger than life. Wish Mani had made this movie 10yrs ago.