Good despite ambivalence Showtime | Meenakshi Rao
Guru *Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai; At: PVR others; Rating: 6.5/10 If you mistake director Mani Ratnam's Gurubhai for Dhirubhai, it's not your fault really. For, there is very little Ratnam camouflages in the first screen version of the late Reliance patriarch's life and times. Actually, one wonders why he really bothers to spin that thin veneer of make-believe around his central character and falls short of calling him Dhirubhai instead of Gurubhai. After all, there is such a liberal dose of kela silk, polyester and petrochemicals talk thrown in to leave you in no doubt about who the tale is being spun around. Then there is this other point of query. Why one earth would a director of Ratnam's stature go so wrong in the portrayal of his central character. For some reason one fails to fathom, he has made Abhishek Bachchan look a wee bit maniacal as Gurubhai and at many points in this otherwise engaging movie one feels he is staring or laughing or merely thinking the abnormal way. Of course, Abhishek has worked really hard at becoming the character he plays though one fervently wishes it did not show. These niggles apart, this Ratnam real-reel will catch your imagination not so much with its music as with its subject. It is the story of a legend in India's corporate history told with a lot of tender loving care. And that's where you start thinking of how a twist here and a turn there has this immense potential to enslave your emotions to a crafty film director's wishes. Ratnam shows Dhirubhai as a visionary far ahead of his time. He was that, no doubt. He shows him as corporate India's biggest success story. Again, no doubt about that. He says the economic policies of his time were inordinately restrictive. True. But when it comes to Dhirubhai's well-known ability to shed scruples and network with Govts, Ratnam decides to wear kid gloves before touching his subject. But then, aren't all obituaries meant to be tributes? http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=FILMS&file_name=film1%2Etxt&counter_img=1
