Go Guru

There are some movies which prove that serious filmmakers (not necessarily filmmakers making grim movies) are the hope for the future. Most certainly for Bollywood. And that's what Mani Ratnam proves to you time after time with each of his directorial ventures. Guru is the latest in that series. I was completely stumped, I mean completely bowled over, after seeing what Ratnam has done in Guru. A not-so-frequently-told-story presented in typical Mani Ratham-ish style: with a totally unexpected and unpredictable screenplay.

My belief that there is nothing such as an actor more than a director's actor was corroborated by AB Jr's performance in this movie. The villager-grows-to-visionary Guru is a mammoth performance for AB Jr's acting resume (after the limp cop act in Dhoom 2) and only the second one after Sarkar. No wonder AB Sr is proud of it. Hats off (for the umpteenth time) to Mani for making this kind of cinema. I thought Ram Gopal Varma was joking when he highlighted the acting prowess of AB Jr before Sarkar was released. Now I know he wasn't joking.