Movie Review: Ghajini

Well, I liked it. 🙂 But as Jeetendra loves to say while doling out his sometimes inane comments while judging reality dance shows, Jara namak kam tha. Only jara.

Ghajini

Plot is common, predictable one that every second Bollywood movie has: revenge for the wrongdoings done to you or your loved ones. Ghajini has a minor exception: Amir Khan is an amnesic patient who has short-term memory loss. He can remember things for only about 15 minutes. He doesn’t remember his identity, his past life when he was a hotsshot businessman aka Sunil Mittal. So how does he avenge his love? He devises his own system of record-keeping, one that leaves him vulnerable to everyone – police, nosey people and villain himself. Ghajini.

I went to movie only knowing that Ghajini was name of villain, thanks to some reviews I superficially scanned on few blogs.

Yes, I admit scanned reviews superficially, because I wanted to watch Ghajini with clean slate. I hadn’t seen the original movie Memento either. But even without it, I can say that except for Amir’s retrograde amnesia, narrative is completely Bollywood pot-boiler style.

Memento has different narrative than Ghajini.

There are so many loopholes I can point out as a layman:

:spoiler begins: With Ghajini’s name written over Amir’s body, and knowing his story, it wouldn’t have been hard for Amir’s loyal manager/doctor to figure out what he was upto. Why didn’t they track down Ghajini for him or help him remember his task? Why does it have to be infuriatingly nosey Jiah Khan? How did Amir track other gang members without any help?? Pretty unusual that girl who has near-death experience never breathes a word about it to her fiancé and plays it down. She is all over news, yet neither Sanjay (her fiancé) nor one of the Sanjay’s, wait-on-him-24/7-employees spot that news on TV. Speaking of news, Sanjay Singhania is so big that he gloats over televisions all the time, yet no one at the ad agency has seen him before! :spoiler ends:

There are other small cinematic goofups that would be befitting to include in Goofs section of an Imdb review.

What matters is the fact that even with so many irregularities, I liked the movie. First the good things:  One word that I associate with Amir Khan is piddi. Watch him wearing trousers that have waistbands not on his waist but ..uh..abdomen, you would know what I mean. There is actually a song in movie where he is wearing such trousers.) Yet this piddi, as 8-pack amnesiac victim on revenge, looks believable as an uncontrollably aggressive stud when he is assailed by his dark memories or when cornered.

Ghajini has every emotion from a Bollywood masala dictionary: romance, humour, action, thrill, suspense. I liked Amir’s performance. Asin was good, but I felt she was overacting in initial part, perhaps owing to such a Miss-Florence-Nightingale character. Jiah Khan’s character was very infuriating to me, but I should blame the shallow script. She was there just to provide requisite twists and turns to the movie. By virtue of her sex, she was also crucial to the climax scene. To re-enact.

The die-hard romantic in me was saddened by the fact it was only a budding romance that was cut so brutally shot by the unexpected. Unfulfilled is the word I would use for my experience. Villain, along with his team, was typical Bolly baddie from 80s. Music is average except perhaps Guzarish. Some of the song tracks were forced, they irritated me.

Yet I must thank the reviews by my fellow bloggers they made me watch the movie without any expectations. I had a gala time. I thank 8-pack piddi for this. Honestly, I did not yawn even once (ok..except perhaps in songs), I was thoroughly engaged, though unconvinced or unfulfilled. :spoiler: By the way, please figure this out for me, why did they have to kill the muscular Ravi-Kishan-look-alike police officer so unceremoniously? I can still laugh at “Do not open” note on his mouth. :Spoiler ends:

Rating: 3.5/5 (Of course, better than likes of Rab ne and Sarkar Raj)