When reviewing a movie, I usually like to summarize just enough of
the plot to establish who the main characters are and just what the
basic conflict is. The trouble is that often an Indian movie will take
its sweet time in establishing character and conflict. It’s not at all
unusual for a movie about a bitter divorce to open by showing how the
couple first met and fell in love, and a movie like Gurudev (1993) will spend two hours setting up a conflict and a half an hour to resolve it. I shall try to condense.
Khakan (Danny Denzongpa) is a wealthy single father and evil businessman. He and his driver Satyen (Satyendra Kapoor) have sons of nearly the same age, and the boys spend most of their time together being doted on by Satyen’s wife Saraswati (Seema Deo). During a routine shady deal, Khakan betrays gangster Bhola Pandey (Kiran Kumar) for no particular reason, earning a life-long enemy and subsequently attracting police attention. He gets away from the police by pinning everything on Satyen. After sending his loyal driver to jail for life, Khakan tells the man’s family that he is dead, and “nobly” agrees to take financial responsibility for them. His plan, as he tells his trusted friend Parshuram (Pran), is to raise Dev to be a police officer, thus giving himself influence in the department. (Insert evil laughter here.)
Time passes. We know this because Kkakan’s hair turns white, and because Dev and Guru are now played by Rishi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor, respectively. The pair live with Dev’s mother, and there is much talk about how they are one big happy family despite not being related by blood. Guru has tickets to a stage show, but Dev has just been notified that he has been accepted as a police officer, and so he decides to investigate the postman’s claim that he’s been cheated out of his bicycle first, and join Guru later. At the bar, he meets Rosy (Sridevi), the swaggering, tough-talking bar owner/con artist. He sees straight through her current ruse, and sparks immediately fly.
Guru, meanwhile, attends the show alone. He is captivated by the performance of Priya (Sridevi). After the show, Priya is brooding about her missing identical twin sister when Guru arrives with flowers. He does his level best to charm her and fails spectacularly; she slams the door in his face. Twice.
After the show, the boys get together and compare notes, with Dev stretching the truth a little and Guru stretching the truth a lot. Dev borrows Guru’s car so that he can go see Rosy again, and narrowly avoids being killed by a car bomb planted by Bhola Pandey’s men.
With Dev recovering in the hospital, Guru goes to Bhola Pandey’s place and delivers a drive-by beating. (Literally; he drives his jeep through the wall, and reaches through the window to deliver punches.) It turns out that in this movie the good-hearted son of the villain is not only aware of the shady side of his father’s business, he’s a willing participant.
The various plotlines simmer for a while. Dev and Rosy continue with their fun flirtation. Guru eventually wins Priya over, apparently through sheer persistence, since I didn’t notice any conceivable reason for her to change her mind. The war between Khakan’s clean-cut syndicate and Bhola Pandey’s rowdy band of gundas heats up. Police inspector Dev bends the law for Khakan’s benefit, but his superior, Khan (Kader Khan, in a rare non-comedic role) starts to rouse his slumbering conscience. And finally, at the two hour mark, Dev learns the truth about his father and the film rockets toward its climactic hail of bullets.
The pacing in Gurudev is definitely off; there’s simply too much premise for the two and a half hour running time. It’s as if the film maker5s had an outline of the plot, but just started filming without deciding how much time to spend on each plot. But the real problem with the film is that there’s simply not enough Sridevi. While Priya is a bit dull, Rosy is a great character, and showcases Sridevi’s strengths well. The film does almost nothing with either one of them, though; the only time one girl is mistaken for the other is during a rather cruel practical joke. Sridevi is a terrible thing to waste.
Khakan (Danny Denzongpa) is a wealthy single father and evil businessman. He and his driver Satyen (Satyendra Kapoor) have sons of nearly the same age, and the boys spend most of their time together being doted on by Satyen’s wife Saraswati (Seema Deo). During a routine shady deal, Khakan betrays gangster Bhola Pandey (Kiran Kumar) for no particular reason, earning a life-long enemy and subsequently attracting police attention. He gets away from the police by pinning everything on Satyen. After sending his loyal driver to jail for life, Khakan tells the man’s family that he is dead, and “nobly” agrees to take financial responsibility for them. His plan, as he tells his trusted friend Parshuram (Pran), is to raise Dev to be a police officer, thus giving himself influence in the department. (Insert evil laughter here.)
Time passes. We know this because Kkakan’s hair turns white, and because Dev and Guru are now played by Rishi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor, respectively. The pair live with Dev’s mother, and there is much talk about how they are one big happy family despite not being related by blood. Guru has tickets to a stage show, but Dev has just been notified that he has been accepted as a police officer, and so he decides to investigate the postman’s claim that he’s been cheated out of his bicycle first, and join Guru later. At the bar, he meets Rosy (Sridevi), the swaggering, tough-talking bar owner/con artist. He sees straight through her current ruse, and sparks immediately fly.
Guru, meanwhile, attends the show alone. He is captivated by the performance of Priya (Sridevi). After the show, Priya is brooding about her missing identical twin sister when Guru arrives with flowers. He does his level best to charm her and fails spectacularly; she slams the door in his face. Twice.
After the show, the boys get together and compare notes, with Dev stretching the truth a little and Guru stretching the truth a lot. Dev borrows Guru’s car so that he can go see Rosy again, and narrowly avoids being killed by a car bomb planted by Bhola Pandey’s men.
With Dev recovering in the hospital, Guru goes to Bhola Pandey’s place and delivers a drive-by beating. (Literally; he drives his jeep through the wall, and reaches through the window to deliver punches.) It turns out that in this movie the good-hearted son of the villain is not only aware of the shady side of his father’s business, he’s a willing participant.
The various plotlines simmer for a while. Dev and Rosy continue with their fun flirtation. Guru eventually wins Priya over, apparently through sheer persistence, since I didn’t notice any conceivable reason for her to change her mind. The war between Khakan’s clean-cut syndicate and Bhola Pandey’s rowdy band of gundas heats up. Police inspector Dev bends the law for Khakan’s benefit, but his superior, Khan (Kader Khan, in a rare non-comedic role) starts to rouse his slumbering conscience. And finally, at the two hour mark, Dev learns the truth about his father and the film rockets toward its climactic hail of bullets.
The pacing in Gurudev is definitely off; there’s simply too much premise for the two and a half hour running time. It’s as if the film maker5s had an outline of the plot, but just started filming without deciding how much time to spend on each plot. But the real problem with the film is that there’s simply not enough Sridevi. While Priya is a bit dull, Rosy is a great character, and showcases Sridevi’s strengths well. The film does almost nothing with either one of them, though; the only time one girl is mistaken for the other is during a rather cruel practical joke. Sridevi is a terrible thing to waste.
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