Sunday, January 28, 2007

Review of GURU ( 2007 )

Guru is a pretty good movie. At least its better than your average Bollywood movie . It has its flaws but somehow manages to keep its grip.

It starts of impresively in a decent Black and White sequence , followed by a reslistic non-glamorous portrayal of Istanbul. One major flaw in the movie is its insistance on breaking into song and dance at the smallest excuse , and there's a pretty bad belly-dance song just to take advance of Istanbul. C'mon !!!! This was supposed to be protrayal of one of the best business minds from India , not a common song-n-dance movie. Plus the belly-dance sequence is a combination of bad music , wierd lyrics ( "Maiya Maiya" ) , however a good attempt at singing .

People in the movie are supposed to be from Gujarat and hence are asked to have a Gujju acent. Most do the job pretty well , but sometimes do falter. Abhishek and Support do a pretty good
job of Gujju accent.

Then there's the attempt of Aishwarya Rai in a ridiculously composed "Baraso Re Megha Megha" . The lyrics are in colloqial Hindi from UP , the accent of the singer is distinctly Tamil , the beats are dance-techno ! Overall the song evokes images of Hamburgers dunked in Sambhar and served with Rumali roti !

Abhishek's performance varies from great ( when acting his age ) to mediocre ( when acting an older man ). Aishwarya's performance is consistence with those of her in most other movies - pretty bad. This actress is now a veteran of Bollywood , and has worked in such challenging roles as 'Raincoat' and 'Chokerbaali' and still hasn't learnt anything about acting.

The people who really hold together the movie's performances are the Support and Mithun Chakraborty. Mithun is a wasted talent. Last I remember seeing him in 'Agnipath' almost overshadowing Amitabh ,and here he is again overshadowing a rising Abhishekh.

The performances by Mithun and the support cast , along with a very strong storyline and some good direction that holds the movie together . There's always a curiosity about what will happen next , and this , my friends , is a great achievement for a Bollywood movie these days.


Overall a 7 on 10 for the movie.

Monday, January 22, 2007