Review: Ghajini

October 5, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

Strictly only for those with short term memory loss

My friends and me had a very big argument after watching ‘Ghajini’. We fought over which was worse — ‘Anniyan’ or ‘Ghajini,’ unanimously agreeing both are bad films and also acknowledging that ‘Ghajini,’ like ‘Anniyan,’ would ultimately go on to be a superhit, because both these films have a winner of an idea at their core (which inspite of failing in classy execution and a convincing narrative) will work simply because the audience are starved of decent entertainment. They will lap up anything remotely good.

‘Anniyan’ and ‘Ghajini’ fall in that category.

Methinks ‘Ghajini’ is better, though just marginally.

Let me first begin with a quick review of ‘Ghajini’ to substantiate.

‘Ghajini’ is, if I remember right, all about short term memory loss, I think.

The producers were so sold on to the idea of short term memory loss that seems like it rubbed off on to everyone in the unit including the director.

The screenwriter director forgets he’s pinched the idea from ‘Memento,’ and tries to pass it off as original.

He forgets the purpose why half the characters he’s created exist in the first place (the hunky overacting cop who dies a most hilarious death, for example, or the twin villains probably created to beat ‘Anniyan’ in special effects)

He forgets logic and reasoning and starts believing all characters have short term memory loss (the entire police department after detaining a man with a tattoo on his chest that says “Find him and kill him” lets him go without even filing an FIR because they just found out he’s a patient and a tycoon)

He forgets that a mass-based audience has brains. The movie is sooo dumbed down (the doctor in beginning says: In medical terms, this condition is called (hold your breath) ‘Short term memory loss’ (and not retrograde amnesia or any such jargon) or the line that was greeted with applause from the entire audience, when a Commissioner Nataraj-look alike looks at Surya’s tattoos and announces his discovery excitedly: “All ten digit numbers. These must be mobile numbers.” Ooops, just like the director I opened too many brackets that I lost track of how many to close. 😉

Hence, ‘Ghajini’ is a film best watched with a failing short term memory. That way, you won’t question the obvious flaws in the plot-hole ridden narrative and just sit back, smile and enjoy it. Like you would do with any of those unpretentious Superstar or Ilaya Thalapathy movies.

The movie starts off on a very promising note (if you don’t let dumbing down put you off) with quite an entertaining flashback sequence (clearly the highpoint of the film) of the love story. Asin is adorable, saucy, chirpy and bubbly, a point that works against the film cuz you later have to put up with a contrasting mini-Shakeela in Nayantara looking so whorebble… so much that when the bad guys chase her in the second half, I was actually rooting for them. “Someone please kill her.” Her overacting and close-ups do not exactly compliment her either.

Anyways, back to the narrative, the film goes downhill from the moment the flashback in the first half finishes. The cop closes the hero’s diary and announces: “Oh shit, what happened the next day. This diary has only till December 31.” Talk about compelling story-telling, the cop actually wants to know the climax for the love story.

You just can’t have the audience laughing at such obviously redundant lines.
The lesser said about the second half of the film, the better. It would really be doing the readers gross injustice to tell them that the spoiler is that there are no spoilers in this aspiring thriller. It’s just a free-fall from a respectable first-half.

A friend of mine wished Murugadoss was faithful to Memento. But I wudn’t have liked to watch it then, cuz it sucks to watch a suspense flick when you know how it ends.

Or, like he said, maybe it would have been better had the director chosen to make the film a full-length original love story since the climax for the affair between a tycoon-in-guise-of-common man and a model-in-guise-of-tycoon’s girlfriend in the flashback was far more suspenseful than the film itself.

Instead what you get is a dead end, a free-fall and a sudden lapse of memory that leaves you wondering: It started off good. But what the f*** happened?

However, (I’ve saved up the best words for the last) Suriya rocks, doing a damn good job of not forgetting continuity and underplaying a role that he could’ve hammed through and won acting honours like Vikram did in ‘Pitamagan’ or ‘Anniyan’. He lends a degree of credibility to the short term memory loss patient.

Kids will love this film cuz they don’t watch films to find flaws.

There’s action (actually a little too violent which they might enjoy even more), there are special effects, there are two good-looking people Suriya (my friend couldn’t stop swooning over him, she went crazy) and the bubbly Asin.

And then, there’s their endearing love story. Which is why I like it more than ‘Anniyan.’ But for this, ‘Anniyan’ and ‘Ghajini’ are equally bad, or good, if you liked ‘Anniyan’. Both these films, like I said before, are dumbed down stories told clumsily for dummies. Had they not insulted your intelligence, you may have actually liked them.

Like this:

Like Loading...

Posted In: Archives

Review: Ghajini

Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply