The Guru is the latest Hinglish film, after movies like ’’Monsoon Wedding’’ & ’’Bend It Like Beckham’’, about NRI’s in UK/USA. Having seen the promos, I was very skeptical about this movie coz I really don’t enjoy films where we see Indians making a fool out of themselves in phoren land. But I was in for a surprise, for a change this movie shows amrikans made ullos by an Indian. Naturally the film was fun to watch :)
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The Story :
Ramu Gupta (Jimi Mistry), is a dance teacher in Delhi, whose dream is to go to the US & become a hollywood star like his idol, John Travolta. Even though his folks are not too happy to send him away, Ramu leaves his home country in search of fame & fortune in Amerika. As soon as he lands there Ramu is hit by harsh reality & the fact that fame doesn’t come easy. Soon he discovers that his Indian friend Vijay, who he thought owned a luxury penthouse & red Mercedes, is in reality working as a waiter & living in an apartment with 2 of his other friends.
In the next scene we see Ramu as a waiter, making a mess on his first day at work & being thrown out of the job. He then auditions & gets selected for a part in a movie. But what poor Ramu doesn’t know is that it’s a porn flick & soon he is shooting dressed as Tarzan, shooting with porn star Sharrona (Heather Graham). What follows is a hilarious scene where Ramu fails miserably to shoot love scenes. Here he is helped by Sharrona who explains to Ramu her philosophy on sex. Ramu is highly impressed by her thinking & wants to know more. However Sharrona has a story of her own. She is a porn star, in love with a fireman, who has no idea of her career & for him she pretends to be a simple catholic schoolteacher. She doesnt want anything to do with Ramu & shrugs him off.
Meanwhile at a party where his friends are working as waiters Ramu meets Swami Boo. Ramu’s friends had been asked by the parents of a rich socialite Lexi (Marissa Tomei), to hire a guru for her. Before the party Swami Boo gets drunk & knocked out. So the next best choice his friends have is to present Ramu as the Guru. When asked to give some philosophy Ramu simply repeats the stuff Sharrona had told him about sex. He spices his talk with dance n song & the amerikans are simply amazed. He is toted as the Guru of Sex & he lands straight into bed with Lexi. She sees it as her job make the guru famous & soon Ramu is sought after by the elite in USA. Since he has no sense of sex philosophy Ramu pleads with Sharrona to be his guru but he doesn’t tell her about his new role as Guru. He simply tells her that he needs to know all this to be better as a porn star. About to be married & tempted by Ramu to buy her ’’dream cake’’, Sharrona agrees to be his guru on the condition that he wouldn’t tell about his lessons to anyone. However, it is these very lessons that Ramu repeats in front of his ’’clients’’ and becomes richer by the day.
The trouble begins when Ramu falls in love with Sharrona & senses that she loves him too. He tries his best to get rid of Lexi & also starts disliking his fake role as a Guru. But Sharrona discovers the truth when she sees him performing live at Broadway [!!]. In true bollywood ishtyle Ramu proves his dil is Hindustani & shuns fame, money to pursue the woman he loves.
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The Performances:
Of all the actors, Jimi Mistry stands out ! Jimi is good looking & has a cute accent. He has done a excellent job as Ramu & the audience is charmed by him, right from scene one : where he is teaching dance to a group of old aunties ! His earlier role was in a hinglish movie East is East, where he played the rebellious eldest son of Om Puri. In The Guru, Jimi manages to carry the whole film on his shoulders. His co-star Heather Graham looks beautiful & convincingly acts out all the sexy dialogues she has been given. Marissa Tomei is wasted in the movie & looks funny in Indian dances ;)
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My Word :
I remember watching a film called ’’The Foreign Body’’ where we had our Bengali actor Victor Banerjee, pretending to be a physician in UK. He has a list of elite patients who adore his bedside manner & his famous vibrating couch. The story of ’’The Guru’’ is inspired by this film & has been spiced up with little changes in background, lots of funny scenes & a good cast.
The film is a lighthearted romantic comedy & simply hilarious. We need to leave our brains at home to enjoy this film ;) There are many funny scenes in the film, esp. the scene where Ramu goes for an audition & when he is posing as the swami for the first time. One cannot help but laugh out loudly at such scenes and enjoy the one-liners. The person who is mostly the target of these one-liners is current amrikan Guru Deepak Chopra. The most funny one-liner was given to Swami Boo who says ’’If you have money you want sex, if you have sex you want money’’. The hindi songs have been used very well & the English songs are with sub-titles, which is amusing to see.
Overall, The Guru is a one time dekho movie with lots of comedy laughs.
A word of caution: Go for this one with ur friends & avoid taking any family members ;)
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Thanx for reading :)