After 24/7 promotions, continuous interviews, and giving youth the Ghajini hairstyle by acting as a barber, Aamir Khan’s most awaited and commercial movie till date, Ghajini, finally got released. Now, the hype around the movie was superb, full marks to the marketing team of Ghajini for that. So, the question is, does it leave to the hype? No, I don’t think so.
There is a lot of discussion going around if Ghajini is a copy of Memento, and believe me, it is. And we’ll talk about it in the end of the post. But first, let me give you a quick review because I’ll forget everything in 15 minutes just like Aamir Khan in the movie.
Story is about a business tycoon, Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan), who is suffering from anterograde amnesia, and is looking for revenge, why? Well, because his girlfriend, Kalpana (Asin) was murdered by the villain guy, Ghajini. As you can see there is nothing special in the story department.
Let’s talk about the treatment of the movie. It’s clearly following the Tamil Cinema where action is over the top and our hero can beat anyone, no matter how many they are, you know Rajnikanth style, as popularly known to Bollywood audience. This is the very first mistake of this movie.
Director of the movie, A. R. Murugadoss, is a South Indian movie director, and he thinks that this type of stuff will work in Bollywood, but sorry to say sir, we’re not living in the 80s anymore. We want some real action, and not this non-sense.
This brings me to the villain, Ghajini (Pradeep Rawat), wearing white pants and jewelry. I mean, c’mon! When Hollywood is giving us cool villains like The Joker, here we have a moron Ghajini, who can’t even fight the hero. We really need a better quality of criminals. The scenes which were supposed to be intense drama, were the ones in which people were laughing. That explains a lot!
The main problem of Ghajini is the incorrect presentation of the disease, anterograde amnesia. The thing which is the main plot point of the story is the weakest link of the movie. There is no consistence in portraying the disease. Sanjay can forget things anytime he wants, irrespective of the limited time frame that is 15 minutes. For example; he can spend more than 15 minutes killing the bad guys but will forget what he is doing only after he killed all of them.
Biggest loophole
Story is filled with loopholes. In the movie, they show us that Aamir doesn’t remember the death of Asin and he only comes to know about it when he reads the tattoos on his body. Fair enough. But the problem arises in the long run.
Now, if we go by the disease, he should forget about her death every 15 minutes, but he doesn’t. He should remind himself every 15 minutes that his girlfriend got murdered. But NO! He’ll forget everything but not this. He’ll forget it only when he sleeps. What kind of BS is this?
And the last scene, how can he remember that his girlfriend is no more? He is happy, enjoying a birthday party, even forgetting the girl who helped her, but doesn’t forget that Asin is no more. As I said earlier, there is no consistency in the disease. Ghajini falls flat when it comes to some logic.
Music is average and songs are forced. If you leave out Kaise Mujhe, there is not one song which comes out natural. The only saving grace of the movie is the love story of Aamir Khan and Asin. It’s simple, innocent and beautiful. For me, it’s the second best love story of 2008 after Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.
Performances
Now let’s talk about the performances. Aamir Khan did all he can do to save this film. He put all of his efforts but there is still lacking the punch. He scores 100 out of 100 for the love story part but when it comes to action, sorry to say, he looks like a Sunny Deol wannabe.
Screaming, running and beating up the guys, no emotions as such. Well, I respect Aamir for his acting and his choice of roles but this time, he got it totally wrong. I know you want to do commercial cinema, but check out some good scripts in lieu of this trash. You’re not Akshay Kumar, so leave the brainless stuff to him.
Asin the best part of Ghajini, people totally loved her. She has a great future in Bollywood because she has a great control over Hindi and her expressions are natural. There will be a tough fight for best debut actress awards this year.
Was there Jiah Khan too in the movie? Damn, this 15 minute thing is really catching up to me. Now, I can see why she was not in the promotions. No acting skills, poor dialogue delivery, another Katrina Kaif wannabe.
Comparison of Memento and Ghajini
As I promised, let’s see how Ghajini and Memento are similar. People, who haven’t seen Memento, please don’t bother replying to this part because you don’t know what you’re dealing with.
Ghajini steals all the main plot points of Memento i.e. Anterograde Amnesia, hero seeking revenge, murder of his love, maps on the wall, a girl helping the hero, and not to forget the Polaroid Camera, they didn’t even bother to change the camera, so stupid! Now if you don’t call it stealing the idea of the movie then I don’t know what you call it.
For those who’ll say that the treatment is different in Ghajini then let me give you an example. Consider an exam and one student is copying answers from another student and then suddenly, teacher catches him. To his defense he says that, “Teacher, our answers maybe same but our hand writing or presentation is different.”
This is what the director and Aamir Khan is doing. A. R. Murugadoss said that he just read the plot line of Memento or saw the trailer and then wrote his script. Well sir, tomorrow you’ll also say that you just heard the name of Memento and wrote a script of your own and surprisingly, it had a lot of similarities. Give us a break!
You can just totally copy “Hitch” and make it “Partner” or thousands of other Hollywood movies into Bollywood but not Memento. Memento is an all time classic and people from all over the globe respects it a lot. Check out imdb.com rating for Memento, you’ll find out yourself.
I’m pissed off because it’ll give such a bad name to Bollywood when people from other countries watch it.
I’m more worried about Christopher Nolan, the guy who made Memento and The Dark Knight. This movie will surely make a bad impression about Bollywood on him. Ok, fine, you copied the movie then at least have the decency to give the credit to Nolan brothers for working so hard over the script. Shameful!!
One thing to Mr. A. R. Murugadoss, you can copy the movie and claim it to be yours but you can never match the respect that Nolan has, not even in your wildest dreams. And please, don’t come to Bollywood with this trash.
Verdict
Ghajini is your total masala film, with all the elements in one package. The script is fully flawed and makes no sense. Aamir Khan really tries to save this film with his superb acting but Ghajini works only because of Asin. If you take out her from the movie then there is nothing left in the movie. A. R. Murugadoss really needs a movie making lesson in Bollywood otherwise there is no future.
In short, Ghajini is dumbness at its best.
For those people who think that this movie is too good then do yourself a favor and watch Memento. You’ll come to know what real movie making is all about. I’m giving the link to IMDB page of Memento below the post so that you can check out the reaction of the public and the ratings.
IMDB Page – Memento
Rating – 
Cast – Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal, Jiah Khan
Music Director – A. R. Rahman
Movie Director – A. R. Murugadoss
Post your comments, reviews and suggestions in the comment box below and I’ll reply to them and vote in the poll.
[polldaddy poll=1228521]
***********************************************************
Did you like this post? Then subscribe to The News Dose for more entertaining posts.
Subscribe to The News Dose by Email
Subscribe to The News Dose through RSS
***********************************************************
Must Reads
1. Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai – So what did we lose and won in this attack? What to do next? Find Out!
2. An Indian Woman is Independent – Are you afraid of Independent women? Or do you want to become one? Then read this post.
3. Are you a loser on the internet? – So, do you think you’re one? Is it difficult to answer? Read the post to find out.
4. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Music Review – Check out the music review of the most awaited movie of 2008.
***********************************************************
[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Ghajini_Movie_Review_4]
