GURU()
Genre: *Drama(based on the life of India’s biggest industrialist known as Dhirubhai Ambani)
Director: Mani Ratnam(He made "Roja", "Yuva", "Bombay", "Dil Se" and lots more):-)
Cast: Mithun, Abhishek, Aishwarya and others
Released: 12th Jan 2007
Guru, as a movie from Mani Ratnam, comes across like the disappontment that you face when a well-set batsmen throws away his wicket due to complacency. Imagine Sachin Tendulkar batting thorough out the day with a backache to take India to a comfortable position during a crucial Test match against an arch rival. Now imagine India losing by 10 odd runs. You don’t remember the heroics of Sachin but only the frustration of seeing your team lose. At the end of Guru, you remember the loose ends and bad screenplay; you tend to forget the stellar performances by Mithun and Abhishek but the irrelevant characters(Vidya, Madhavan, and a few others) keep ringing a bell or two in your mind.
Dhirubhai remains the biggest rags-to-riches businessman India has ever known. Guru is surely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani but do you really care? If you do, here’s a quick comparison:
1. Dhirubhai was born as Dhirajlal Hirachand vs. Gurubhai was Gurukan Desai\
2. Dhirubhai’s father was a teacher in a village(so is Gurubhai’s)
3. Guru rhymes with Dhiru
4. Dhirubhai was 16 when he went abroad(ditto with Guru)
5. Dhirubhai was working for a distributor of Shell products(Gurubhai talks of Burma Shell too)
6. Dhirubhai(admitted and) was a manipulator. Gurubhai too in this movie was.
7. Champaklal Damani(Dhirubhai’s second cousin) as a business partner is shown as the brother-in-law of Guru in the movie
8. The fight was over Dhirubhai’s insistence on making a large inventory of “kela silk”(polyester) risking it on the probability of the prices going up whereas Champaklal wanted to play it safe. The same reason is cited in movie for the rift between Gurubhai and his business partner.
9. *“Think big, think fast, think ahead…"said Dhirubhai *and Gurubhai says the same
10. Mithun Chakraborty portrays Ramnath Goenka(owner of Indian Express) who suddnely became enemies with Dhirubhai for no apparent reason.
(contd. in comments section)