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It�s difficult to pinpoint exactly what I liked about �The Guru�. Was it Jimmy Mistry�s slick (??) hairdo or his Travolta style dancing? Or was it Heather Graham�s angelic portrayal of the forced-to-become-a-porno-star character? It may even have been Marisa Tomei�s searching-for-my-soul look. Yes, the casting was perfect.
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The story was good, too. A simple story of love being more important than all else, garnished with a little bit of East meets West and served with a huge helping of humour and a couple of unexpected angles to the plot. Indeed there may be some who think that some portions were crass and Indian spiritualism as seen through a fake Guru was a bit far fetched, but all in all, the film had a sense of honesty about it.
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Honesty about a simple guy called Ramu Gupta who dreamt of money and Mercedes� and would go to any length to get it. Honesty about the fact that there are enough empty-headed people in the world who follow any hair brained scheme just because there was a huge wave behind it. And honesty indeed that when you have it all, you sometimes realize that that wasn�t really what you wanted.
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I�d go so far as to say I do believe that all this could really happen. Well maybe not the car flying towards heaven in the end and maybe not even the Guru admitting all on prime time TV, but definitely the dance teacher from Delhi becoming a Guru to the rich and famous using nothing but a few profound ideas stolen from his beautiful porn star friend.
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The question then is, what really made this movie click? My guess is that it�s the idea that the American dream is still out there. A good idea at the right time, if marketed well, will sell. As Rammy says, he wanted his chance to see whether he can actually make it and get his fifteen minutes of fame, and well the entire audience is sitting in their seats hoping that he does make it. No one�s really there to watch the story of a guy who just struggled and struggled and struggled. Plus, the movie is outright funny and its definitely amusing watching them break into Indian style song and dance sequences.
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All in all, great time pass, very watchable and hey, if this isn�t entertainment, I don�t know what is.
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