Better Late Then Never

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Despite its exotic setting and occasionally flashy technique, "Guru" is really just the oldie about the rube from the provinces who ventures to the Big Bad City in search of fame and fortune, only to fall under the spell of greed and corruption in his ruthless climb to the top. The twist here, though, is that the film is also a nationalistic David-and-Goliath tale of a man from the lower classes who takes on the entrenched corporate interests who use their collective power to keep men like him from sharing in the wealth. This leads to the rather bizarre, ethically dubious contention that it's okay to engage in corruption just as long as the people you are ripping off are demonstrably more corrupt than you are.Ambitious in theme and epic in scope, the story spans a thirty year period, beginning in 1951 when Gurubhai Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) leaves his village to make a success of himself in the outside world, and ending in 1980 when he and his company are facing prosecution for fraud, tax evasion and a whole host of other unscrupulous business practices that are threatening to bring Desai's corporate empire crashing down around him.Despite their undeniable virtues in other areas, Indian films are not generally noted for either their brevity or their emotional subtlety - and "Guru" is no exception in this regard. It suffers from an exhausting 155-minute running time as well as from a tendency to overstate its major plot and character points ad absurdum. When the people in the film are happy, they must be shown to be deliriously happy, dancing in the streets and throwing each other into the air to demonstrate their joy; when they are sad, angry, conniving or morally righteous, they behave in similarly emphatic and underlined ways, with A.R. Rahman's pumped-up, ear-pounding musical score wringing every remaining drop of subtlety and restraint out of the picture.Still, I suppose this is all part of the Bollywood appeal, and there are certainly some notable virtues that make the film worth recommending. First of all, the film is visually stunning, with one beautifully framed image after another unfolding in multi-colored, kaleidoscopic splendor before us. Second, there is a certain old-fashioned freshness to the utterly unabashed and shameless way in which the movie traffics in purple prose melodrama, wearing its emotions so transparently on its sleeves that it purges the story of all possible archness or coyness. (Think of it as a Douglas Sirk production with saris). Finally, as with virtually all commercial Indian films, "Guru" is decked out with a generous helping of lively, though admittedly quite corny, song-and-dance numbers that wind up "stopping the show" in both the best and worst senses of that phrase. For fun as these musical sequences are to watch, they do lead one to wonder if all the money that Indian producers so generously lavish on choreographers might not, in fact, be more wisely spent on a few judicious editors instead.

Awful movie, one of the worst Hindi movies I have seen to date...Don't understand the logic of this movie: You can bribe and break the law but as long as you are successful and a big entrepreneur in the eye of the world it's all fine? A dubious patriotic movie without depth and intellectual stimulation and with an ill-construed storyline and irritating male-female role portrayal. Purely appealing to a currently prevalent "We are/can become the greatest" instinct. Nothing else. What good is the main character doing? Except for egotistical capitalism. And doesn't it become boring to always have those flat stereotypical hero male roles and those flat stereotypical supportive, homely female roles? If you liked Rang de Basanti, you may like this one too. It has a similar strange "the end justifies the means" morale, although Rang de Basanti is still better.

(Karthik Narayan) The bhais have invaded Bollywood –"mum-bhai", then "Aslam Bhai" and later, Munnabhai. Now, Gurubhai. While Munnabhai moved the nation with his silly humor and good natured bhai-dom, Gurubhai places India on the world trade map.In 'Guru' Abishek Bachchan manages to consolidate his career, after the success of Dhoom 1 and 2.Guru is that rare movie where a businessman's success is related positively to the success of a nation.This is the rags-to-riches story of a man who dares to take on the system. The road to success is not smooth and the protagonist overcomes obstacles by by-passing the system. Naturally, he gets into trouble – how he overcomes that forms the rest of this story. He struggles to lead a decent family life in the midst of busy schedules and chaotic stress. Friction with his mentors and relatives leads to distortion of relationships. "Gurubhai" has only Paisa, profit or munafa in mind while doing his polyester business and much later, with new lines of businesses like petroleum.Success comes with a price – the honesty and straightforwardness disappear and Gurubhai takes on another avatar, closely watched by Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborthy) and his pet reporter Shyam Saxena (a chocolate faced Madhavan plays this cameo to perfection).Madhavan meeting "gurubhai" for the first time & taking on the challenge of exposing Guru's corrupt practices to the world is good cinema. Ash looks gorgeous. The music by AR Rehman is pleasant - one stand-out song is the "barso re megha" song by Shreya Ghoshal. The sweetness and melody fuse to give sheer magic.Gurubhai leaves you with a distinct taste of victory achieved after chasing it mercilessly.The Bhais are definitely here to stay.

OH well this movie has everything to offer one can imagine.....good acting, good songs, choreography etc.This movie is about guru who wants to become a big business tycoon.... he marries ash and goes to mumbai to ful fil his dreams.....he becomes a big industrialist from a poor villager .......... he earns the favour of the people but this does not last too long and is soon declared as corrupted all because of the newspaper runned by mr chakarboty who points his needle against him for spreading corruption.....there he realise the hardships that one has to face but finally with his effort starts up his own industry of textiles and faces a lots of hardships in future as everybody stands against him considering him corrupted....... This film has everything to offer especially the performances.... HAts off to the actors who threw mighty performances in this flick...... this was his best ever logical performance especially his power packed speech in the end which makes everyone clap........... ash also for the first time threw an impressed performance and gives a sign in improvement of her acting... the songs are also beautifully composed in optimistic backgrounds... overall this film is a GOODIE!