Ghajini, the good, the bad and the ugly

I went and saw the late late show of Ghajini, friday night.

Aside: It wasn’t supposed to be the late late show, just the late show, but Big Cinemas seems to run on a completely different clock. Printed time — 10:35pm, actual time — 11:15pm. The movie got over at 2:30am.

And I have to say I liked the movie, despite the narrative jumps and the holes in the plot. Go read something else if you don’t want me spoiling the movie for you.

Aamir Khan and Asin are great. Aamir’s body beats out the other two Khans (SR and just S) by a couple of miles. Especially since his face hasn’t aged by a hundred years through the body building process. He is completely believable in his role. The love story between Aamir and Asin is the high point of the movie, and Aamir’s lack of over the top histrionics is especially enjoyable. Asin is bubbly and cute without being irritating. I completely got into Aamir kicking the villian’s butt as well.

But to enjoy the movie I had to stop myself from thinking about three things:

1. The Role Of The Police: The plot exists in a universe where the cops are extras, only coming in to take the story into the next scene. They do nothing that you’d expect police, corrupt or otherwise, to do. And in a movie which involves one major crime after the other, its a little galling to see the police used like a piece of furniture. The movie would have been MUCH better if the police had been used intelligently, or not used at all.

2. Aamir’s rolled up muscle shirts, and everybody else’s ill fitting suits: Van Heusen is the official sponsor of all the suits. So I don’t get the rolled up muscle shirts Aamir wears in some scenes, and the badly fitted suits that some of the supporting cast has to put up with. If nothing else, its a lesson to everybody — never buy a suit off the rack, get it stitched.

3. Jiah Khan: The woman with an English accent from Main Street, USA and a Hindi accent from Mean Street, India is pretty with a total of three expressions. She also suffers from being asked by the director to behave in a manner during important scenes that are completely unnatural. Its like one of those horror movies where a scream in time can save a lot of lives, but for some inexplicable reason the heroine refuses to scream. Thankfully, Aamir doesn’t fall in love with her.

4. There’s a number four, I just didn’t tell you: The unexpected in a movie is supposed to be good, in this one however, the unexpected usually signals the bad. There’s all this stuff that’s in the movie for no rhyme or reason. My younger brother pointed out the songs that popped in from nowhere, and the completely forgetable score from A R Rehman. Also, characters who drop in and drop out for no reason, and plot twists that are completely forced, and a doctor who teaches neurology who should be shot, and a villian who’s patently over the top heading a huge pharma company, and a bunch of army jawans hiding behind a shutter … feel free to add to the list.

All said and done, you’re either going to love the movie, or hate the movie — and I loved the movie. I enjoyed Aamir, but then, I’m an Aamir fan. I just wish the narrative structure of the movie was better. I can’t help but compare the movie to Sarfarosh, easily one of the best action thrillers I’ve seen. Comparing this movie to Dil Chahta is like comparing apples and oranges … so I’m not going there.

Recovered from the site’s WordPress archive, where it was published on 2008-12-27.