Polyester Prince - Dhiru and Guru - a la Mani Ratnam

The fact that it is a film made by Mani Ratnam automatically raised my expectations from it. And rumours that it has been inspired by the story of Dhirubhai Ambani only whetted my curiosity further. The grapevine had it that the movie has made a tremendous beginning at the box office and Amitabh Bachhan quite shamelessly, I think, endorsed son Abhishek's acting skills in the movie in an interview aired on NDTV. All in all, I was really looking forward to watching Guru and luckily, I got to see it this Sunday at the PVR multiplex in Forum Mall.

And I am a tad disappointed. The rumours are of course spot on – only that the movie is not merely inspired by, it is almost a biopic of Dhirubhai. And you can easily figure out the other characters in the movie are inspired by other historical figures – Arzan Contractor is definitely based on Nusli Wadia, Manik Dasgupta on Ramnath Goenka, Shyam Saxena is S. Gurumurthy, Champaklal Damani's character has been shown as a childhood friend and brother of Kokilaben. Kokilaben Ambani has hardly ever been in the limelight and I know precious little of her life's story – so I can only assume that Aishwarya Rai's character is based on her. Turkey replaces Yemen in the movie and curiously, Gurubhai in the movie is only shown to have two daughters – Mukesh and Anil bhai have been conveniently forgotten. Warring kinmen apparently have no place in family sagas.

But of course, Mani Ratnam has made biopics earlier and his Iruvar was widely appreciated. This movie, however, seems to lack a punch and finishes without taking a very clear stand between the two rival threads that run through the film. Abhishek Bachhan's defence during the RBI grilling is unconvincing and his attempt to relate his travails and fights with Gandhiji's fight against the British is ludicrous. Abhishek Bachhan has however turned in a stupendous performance in a role, which, though it was author backed to the core, required him to enact a person much older in age and maturity. Mithun Chakraborty makes a welcome return to mainstream Bollywood and excels in the role of the media patriarch. However, I did feel that the shift in equations between Guru and Manik Dasgupta from friendship to enmity was very sudden and out of sorts. Would a person suddenly dedicate himself wholly to finish off somebody, who, till the other day, was like a son to him? The chemistry between Abhishek and Ash is for all to see, otherwise, Ash really did not have much to do. Her introduction in the movie was however, quite spectacular and Rajeev Menon has handled the photography department with aplomb, as ever. Madhavan and Vidya Balan have however been wasted and the development of a parallel romantic angle between them is totally unrelated to the movie. I simply cannot comprehend the necessity of introducing an item number in a movie like this – perhaps the need to have Mallika Sherawat gyrate in a typical Turkish belly dance is what led to the shift of the background to Turkey from the historical Yemen.

Biopics, if they are simply visual rendition of a true story, without any kind of message being pushed forward or any other kind of embellishment, engender a sense of incompleteness to a movie and I think, that is the problem with Guru.