Thursday, December 25, 2008

Ghajini - Movie Review

Ghajini

Cast: Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal, Jiah Khan

Director: AR Murugadoss

Music: AR Rahman

Rating: ***1/2

Ghajini is an out and out revenge saga. But the director has tried to amalgamate the riveting revenge story with a soft romance between the two protagonists, Sanjay and Kalpana, played by Aamir Khan and Asin.

Sanjay Singhania is a very rich man with a flourishing business. One fine day, in order to promote his venture, he decides to display a board on Kalpana's roof top, much to her anger. Sanjay's business manager comes and requests Kalpana to allow them to display the board. She rejects the offer. But her commercial director (she works as an extra in the advertising world) overhears the conversation and presumes that Asin has refused Sanjay's love offer. How he tells her to accept the offer and how the intriguing romance blossoms between Kalpana and Sanjay form the crux of the story.

But the violent murder of his girlfriend sets off an acute short term memory loss in Sanjay. How he works around the handicap to reach her murderers is the rest of the story. Hindi movies have often depicted people suffering from memory loss, but in Ghajini the protagonist recalls events only for 15 minutes. And the manner in which he works to regain his memory has been depicted meticulously and very differently. He keeps writing the time, name and dates of clues about the killers as when he remembers them. He also carries a Polaroid to keep him updated in case he forgets.

The film is three hours long and the good versus evil theme is something we've seen many a time in Bollywood films, but each scene of the film is so gripping that never once do we feel bored. The story has been told in such a novel way with so many twists and turns that it keeps the audiences on the edge of their seats guessing what would come up next.

Director AR Murugadoss has tried to de-route Ghajini when compared to the Tamil version. The climax is different from the original. He cleverly weaves in the past and the present.

Performance wise, this is completely an Aamir Khan movie. He has done a brilliant job as usual. He hardly talks. It's his facial expressions and body language that do all the talking. His leading lady Asin has put up a sterling performance, so has the villain, Pradeep Singh Rawat.

Ravi Chandran's cinematography is excellent and AR Rahman's music is top-notch.

All in all Ghajini is a refreshing change. The film does not have a happy ending as both lovers do not get united in the end. Although this concept has never been approved by the Indian audiences, but Ghajini is sure to change that for the sheer brilliance of the movie. To sum up, Ghajini has everything to turn it a blockbuster hit. This one's a must watch!