Posted:
Movie Review: Ghajini
Ghajini: Such fuss over THIS?
Ghajini: Such fuss over THIS?
Cast: Aamir Khan, Jiah Khan, Asin, Pradeep Rawat
Director: A R Murugadoss
Rating: 2/5
Ghajini is a second rate movie.
It is also too long. If you're an Aamir Khan groupie it might not be entirely intolerable - but it will be disappointing. Ghajini has the look and feel of a Tamil film. That is to say it is loud and obvious, and a couple of notches under Bollywood, in terms of technique and finish. It is what Bollywood was in the 1980s before SRK and Aamir pulled it out.
Aamir looks buffed and ripped in the scene where he shows us his muscles. But he's a shorty with a sweet face, and so his body is not threatening. Imagine Rishi Kapoor with a six pack. Asin is pleasant but not charismatic. Her face whizzes past you, like those of girls in washing machine ads playing impossibly young mothers. Kareena and Katrina are under no threat from her.
The plot of Ghajini is simple: boy meets girl, villain kills girl, boy kills villain. There is no twist, no suspense and no mystery - except for what Ghajini means (Mahmud Ghazni, perhaps?). You know where the movie is going and you want it to move along. But director Murugadoss is determined to give you your money's worth, and he understands that to mean more reels.
Ghajini is over three hours long, its length coming from many scenes and many characters sellotaped on the script. Here's how it goes.
Aamir Khan owns a cellphone company and falls in love with Asin, who is a model. She doesn't know he's rich till she dies, demonstrating that her love is pure and undiluted by his millions - but leaving the viewer, who wants to see the chick's reaction when she finds out, unresolved.
Asin's is a Mother Teresa figure, relentlessly helping the blind cross the road, and the crippled cross the gate, with the earnestness of a Miss Universe finalist. Her sally into more dangerous messianic adventure (rescuing 25 girls who have their kidneys sold AND are shipped to a brothel) gets her killed by the villain, Ghajini, played by Pradeep Rawat, who is ugly, but not brutish, and who threatens Aamir by saying: "Saale!". More effectively, Rawat also bashes Aamir on the head, causing him to enter a medical condition, one that most men will be familiar with, called Short Term Memory Loss. This means he keeps forgetting. For reasons of vengeance, he forces himself to remember through means like tattooing numbers and names on his body, constantly taking Polaroid pictures to place people, and labeling things around his house. This is the bit that Murugadoss has lifted cleanly from the movie Memento.
Like Sisyphus, Aamir's quest never ends. He must return to full rage over and over again, every 15 minutes. What must that be like? We don't know.
Aamir is first hindered and then helped by medical student Jiah Khan (excellent body, zero personality). His birthdate is shown on her records as April 26, 1975, making him ten years younger than he actually (March 14, 1965) is. He does look a credible 33; how he'll pull off a college student in his next movie 3 Idiots will be interesting.
Ghajini has parallel narratives: the love story, shown in flashback, and the revenge story, which moves forward with every man Aamir kills. The action scenes are unsatisfying. They have been crafted by a man who has clearly never been in a fight, and has only seen one in Tamil movies. The Bombay police play their part: arresting Aamir for breaking into a women's hostel, but failing to notice that he's killing people, including a particularly irritating cop, around the city.
Rahman's music is rubbish and there is not a line of melody in the movie. Murugadoss would be entitled to a refund. Ghajini will appeal to those who like movies like Gadar, and the early work of Akshay Kumar.
Those who are observant (Aamir Khan is left-handed) will find the movie irritating. The problem is: Aamir's done a really good job... in promoting the movie.
You REALLY want to see it, don't you?
Fine. But not on the weekend when the tickets are expensive.
Director: A R Murugadoss
Rating: 2/5
Ghajini is a second rate movie.
It is also too long. If you're an Aamir Khan groupie it might not be entirely intolerable - but it will be disappointing. Ghajini has the look and feel of a Tamil film. That is to say it is loud and obvious, and a couple of notches under Bollywood, in terms of technique and finish. It is what Bollywood was in the 1980s before SRK and Aamir pulled it out.
Aamir looks buffed and ripped in the scene where he shows us his muscles. But he's a shorty with a sweet face, and so his body is not threatening. Imagine Rishi Kapoor with a six pack. Asin is pleasant but not charismatic. Her face whizzes past you, like those of girls in washing machine ads playing impossibly young mothers. Kareena and Katrina are under no threat from her.
The plot of Ghajini is simple: boy meets girl, villain kills girl, boy kills villain. There is no twist, no suspense and no mystery - except for what Ghajini means (Mahmud Ghazni, perhaps?). You know where the movie is going and you want it to move along. But director Murugadoss is determined to give you your money's worth, and he understands that to mean more reels.
Ghajini is over three hours long, its length coming from many scenes and many characters sellotaped on the script. Here's how it goes.
Aamir Khan owns a cellphone company and falls in love with Asin, who is a model. She doesn't know he's rich till she dies, demonstrating that her love is pure and undiluted by his millions - but leaving the viewer, who wants to see the chick's reaction when she finds out, unresolved.
Asin's is a Mother Teresa figure, relentlessly helping the blind cross the road, and the crippled cross the gate, with the earnestness of a Miss Universe finalist. Her sally into more dangerous messianic adventure (rescuing 25 girls who have their kidneys sold AND are shipped to a brothel) gets her killed by the villain, Ghajini, played by Pradeep Rawat, who is ugly, but not brutish, and who threatens Aamir by saying: "Saale!". More effectively, Rawat also bashes Aamir on the head, causing him to enter a medical condition, one that most men will be familiar with, called Short Term Memory Loss. This means he keeps forgetting. For reasons of vengeance, he forces himself to remember through means like tattooing numbers and names on his body, constantly taking Polaroid pictures to place people, and labeling things around his house. This is the bit that Murugadoss has lifted cleanly from the movie Memento.
Like Sisyphus, Aamir's quest never ends. He must return to full rage over and over again, every 15 minutes. What must that be like? We don't know.
Aamir is first hindered and then helped by medical student Jiah Khan (excellent body, zero personality). His birthdate is shown on her records as April 26, 1975, making him ten years younger than he actually (March 14, 1965) is. He does look a credible 33; how he'll pull off a college student in his next movie 3 Idiots will be interesting.
Ghajini has parallel narratives: the love story, shown in flashback, and the revenge story, which moves forward with every man Aamir kills. The action scenes are unsatisfying. They have been crafted by a man who has clearly never been in a fight, and has only seen one in Tamil movies. The Bombay police play their part: arresting Aamir for breaking into a women's hostel, but failing to notice that he's killing people, including a particularly irritating cop, around the city.
Rahman's music is rubbish and there is not a line of melody in the movie. Murugadoss would be entitled to a refund. Ghajini will appeal to those who like movies like Gadar, and the early work of Akshay Kumar.
Those who are observant (Aamir Khan is left-handed) will find the movie irritating. The problem is: Aamir's done a really good job... in promoting the movie.
You REALLY want to see it, don't you?
Fine. But not on the weekend when the tickets are expensive.
Itti Si Khushi Sab TV
Anupamaa
Love Friendship Dating and Relationships
6