Rating: ★★★ ½ Genres: Action, Romantic Censor: U Duration: 142 Min. Studio/presenter: Eros International, Bagpiper Soda, Dreaming 24×7 Entertainment Producer(s): Deepak Pandurang Rane Director: Sanjay Jadhav Writer: Aashish Pathre Music: Amitraj, Pankaj Padghan, Praful Karlekar Cinematographer (DOP): Vijay Soni Cast: Ankush Chaudhary, Urmila Kanitkar Kothare, Murli Sharma, Avinash Narkar, Sneha Raikar, Ravindra Mankani Movie Review by: Ulhas Shirke

In Bollywood and South Indian action films, we have seen many stories of Superman, who fights against the evil doers to give justice to the people, suffering from harassment. Eros International and director Sanjay Jadhav have presented one such Superman, in the form of ‘Guru’, played by Ankush Choudhari. So, in this film, the character of Guru is not a very clean and principled youth; but he is into all wrong illegal business of thefts and targeting all those, who are also into wrong business. But, he is kind hearted and serves food to all those, in need of it.

One day, Guru, becomes witness to a murder, when he hides in an under construction building, to give a slip to police. But, he lands into trouble as the CID officer , who is close to a big builder ( Ravindra Mankani) , who commits this murder; wants to trap Guru in this case. So, Guru leaves the city and takes shelter at his brother’s ( Avinash Narkar) place in his village. But, here, he discovers atrocities on the villagers and his brother, by a local MLA Mansing ( Murli Sharma) , who has made their lives miserable, using his muscle power. At this stage Guru turns a Superman for the villagers, lifting and tossing dozens of Mansing’s fighters in the air and bashing them against the walls. At the same time, he doesn’t forget to carry forward his love story with charming young Ovi ( Urmila kanitkar Kothare), daughter of temple priest, who lives in the same village.

When Mansing plays his dirty game of cheating the villagers, by asking them to surrender their lands, for the development of village, into a mega City, Guru thwarts his plans , with the help of Ovi, by uniting the villagers .Finally, when he stages an agitation, by blocking the road, the media comes into picture, exposing the plan of Mansing, thus showing victory of truth over evil. Sanjay Jadhav as the director of this film, has done a lot of hard work, to keep the tempo of the film, going with some interesting happenings till interval. But, in the post interval session, which is a revenge story, slows down a bit and becomes predictable with the villain striking again and again, even after Guru teaches him a lesson. He even manages the protest sequences of the villagers , very well; but he has stretched the concluding scene, in a typical 60s and 70s style of Hindi films.

However, the film scores on account of good performances by stylish Ankush Choudhari, lively Urmila Kanitkar Kothare, witty but cruel Murli Sharma, principled Avinash Narkar, caring Sneha Raikar , dangerous Ravindra Mankani and few others. Moreover, instead of presenting a passtime story for such a masala film with action and entertainment , director Sanjay Jadhav has taken up a timely issue, faced by many villages in Maharashtra; very skilfully through this film, which is also to be appreciated. Good music by Amitraj & Pankaj Padgham , excellent choreography of Umesh Jadhav , suitable costume designs by Harshada Khanvilkar, artistic art design by Satish Chipkar, Ashwini Kocharekar and appropriate use of visual effects by Prasad Sutar are also the plus points of this so called masala film.

‘Guru‘ may appeal to all those, who enjoyed watching the films like, ‘Lai Bhari’, ‘Singham’ and ‘Dabangg’. In short, it has offered a complete recipe of entertainment, in a South Indian and Bollywood film style. Last but not the least, Ankush Choudhari will be called the new superman of Marathi films, after release of this film.