Guru - Villager, Visionary - Winner for sure on the celluloid!

Guru is about a middle class person who starts dreaming big and tries to make the impossible possible in his own way. He is a bold-decision maker, risk taker right from a very young age. When most people in the era think about making a secure job in a government with a minimum education required, Guru fights against the will of his father to start working in a far off land Turkey. From there starts the journey of Gurukanth Desai to Guru Bhai, from rages to riches, from a village to a big city and very truly, from a human to a visionary – fulfilling the dreams of thousands of people including him selves.

The fantastic thing about the movie is Manirathnam for sure. The story and screenplay are so good that you hardly notice the story moving away from the main path towards the end. The screen play is next top perfect with each character properly laid from their start to their end keeping in mind the progress they make in the story of the film while adding to it. Guru is among Mani’s better works for sure. Though you could wonder, why he hasn’t shown the negative shades of Guru’s character more prominently on screen, with the final output he has given, you actually give it loose eye.

As always Manirathnam-Rahman’s chemistry does wonders on the screen. The duo makes some trend setting films together and Guru stands out in them in recent past. Background score is beautifully done. Two of the songs – Jaage Hein and Ay Hairathe – are used as a back ground songs. Jaage Hein acts as the glue holding all the film together. Most of the songs take the story forward except for Ek lo Ek Muft. This number sung by Bappi Lahari and Chitra ji , in fact, downs the temp a bit. But having said that, the script is so well supported by the characters you can hardly notice it.

The peculiar characteristic of Mani’s characterization is the ability that he provides for actors to perform and excel in their roles. Each of the actors have been rightly chosen fitting into the character visualized. Mithun Chakraborty’s character of an honest editor bent to show-case truth and only truth to the public is very good. And Mithun gives a very good performance far way better than his previously when-did-it-release movie with Rahul Khanna and gang. Notable performances by Madhavan (as a reporter dead against the way things Gurukanth does) and Aishwarya Rai (as the wife of Guru) add to the screenplays presentation on the screen. Vidya Balan bags another good role, though the character could have been given more strength. Mallika sizzles, oozes beauty in her own way – That’s the usual Mallika for us!

And finally Abhishek Bachaan. His previous work with Mani – Yuva – was addressed as his best performance then. And Guru is going to cross that barrier by a huge margin. He literally brings live the character with his gestures and the honesty. Dawning a role that spans about 30 years is not easy for an actor. Abhishek shows he has grown out of the shoes of his father to stand on his own feet and perform such difficult task with ease and in such a way that you might actually wonder if it’s a completely Abhishek’s signature movie and not Mani’s. Such is the versatility shown by Abhishek and Guru is definitely going to be a great performances among the movies he has done till now and he would do in future.

Guru should stand out among the Indian films recently for the obvious reasons – Mani’s amazing work, Abhishek extra-ordinary performance and Rahman’s magic. Guru is a phenomenon. Through its message – Dream and Dream big, do everything to achieve it - hopefully it brings more good directors/story writers not necessarily of Mani’s caliber to the Indian cinema.

Fahrenheit 9/11

It’s more of a documentary than movie that shows the possible motives of Bush administration to help Bush pockets get fatter from the aftermaths of the sad day 9/11. To showcase such prolific, defaming material and comments against the No.1 in the No.1 country of the world needs a great deal of courage. Michael Moore seems to have a great deal of it - contacting the senators to get one of their children sent to help the army people in Iraq, was a pretty good idea. He lays down his facts very nicely in the start of the movie, with details of Bush's adventures in businesses and his interest. And the way he links his interpretations of the way Bush has acted in the way he has leads the audience think that Bush has started this major human massacre without much thought of the Magnus job he has taken on.

The documentary sounded a lot near to the truth. But truth is to be left to the decision of the people and not to be rubbed on to the minds. Mr. Moore shows only one angle of the story – his brutal hatred towards anything that’s Bush related even minutely. Had he show cased a little bit of the other angle, Fahrenheit could have been even more interesting. But given the burning importance of the issue he is dealing and his own pre-conceived, loath-Bush thoughts, it could have been difficult even to ‘think’ on the other angle.

So what’s this whole “Hunt Osama – Kill Saddam” about – Let live people with freedom? I definitely don’t think so. Death of innocent people is inevitable in any war, but to such huge numbers and remember, the numbers are increasing every day. These huge death tolls don’t answer any kind of reasoning behind for that stupid decision to declare War on Iraq. If that’s the way even democratic nations is going to work – Stronger Bullies the Weaker - with little protest from weaker countries, there needs to be the formation of a stronger consortium to guide the interests of humanity in general and peace in people lives in particular.