Ghajini

-- Update 2 --
Read about the movie's accomplishments here.

-- Update --
I just loved Aamir Khan's quote that I came across while reading Rediff's top 10 pick of the year and had to post it here. :) The quote was reply to a question in regards to whether Aamir feels he's # 1 given Ghajini is declared #1 movie of 2008.

"Does Lata Mangeshkar ever say that she is number one? Or for that matter, does Sachin Tendulkar say he is the number one batsman? So why should I say that? The only people who say they are number one are in real, not number one!"

Read more here.

-- Original blog --
SPOILER WARNING!
A remake of the 2005 Tamil superhit, the film retained the original title, the director (A. R. Murugadoss), the heroine (Asin Thottumkal) and the villain (Pradeep Rawat). The remake marks debut of the director and heroine into Bollywood. However, Pradeep has acted in quite a few movies, including Sarfarosh.


Pradeep RawatThe main protagonist has been essayed by Aamir Khan replacing Surya Sivakumar. The music director changed as well. The Tamil collection was composed by Harris Jayaraj (remember, RHTDM?) whereas the Hindi one boasts of A. R. Rehman. (Who else could it be? After all, Aamir seems to have clear favorites - A. R. Rehman, Prasoon Joshi.)

Despite facing competition from RNBDJ and CC2C, Ghajini aroused enough interest to beat its Yashraj films competitor in its opening collections. Whether CC2C meets the bar is yet to be seen.


Story:Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan) is suffering from anterograde amnesia. Sunita (Jiah Khan), a medical student takes interest in the case study of this patient. Sanjay commits quite a few murders and utilizes pictures, notes, body tattoes to over come his 15 minute lasting memory ailment. He wakes up every morning to remind himself of his motive - find Ghajini (Pradeep Rawat) and kill him.

A police officer investigating the murder cases is able to find Sanjay and get hold of a diary that is the gateway to his past - Sanjay, CEO of Air Voice and how life presents him his love, Kalpana (Asin).

But before the officer could delve further into Sanjay's past, Sanjay wakes up and ties the officer up. Sunita in her pursuit of exploring Sanjay's case further, visits his apartment and rescues the officer. She happens to come across the diaries as well and quite a few pictures of murdered victims and potential targets, including Ghajini. But before Sunita and the officer could leave, Sanjay comes back and in a chase, the officer is hit by a truck and dies on the spot. Sunita takes advantage of Sanjay's 15 minute state and escapes. However, she meets Ghajini and cautions him against Sanjay. Sanjay finds out about Sunita and tries to kill her. Sunita manages to save herself and have Sanjay evicted to jail.

Later, Sunita browses through Sanjay's diaries to find what the officer found earlier and more. However, the diary is incomplete. Sunita is intrigued and after a bit of research finds that Kalpana exposed a girl molestation racket and saved 25 odd girls. However, that led to exposing Ghajini Dharmatma as well. Ghajini killed Kalpana and hit Sanjay with a heavy metal that led to Sanjay's current state.

Sanjay is released from jail with the help of his Air Voice colleagues. As police knows that Sanjay's body has 'Ghajini' tattoed all over it, Ghajini decides to not kill Sanjay but instead destroy all things that helps Sanjay fulfil his mission.

Sunita decides to help Sanjay take revenge. The rest of the plot is predictable. But the climax is nail biting.


For folks that have already seen Memento, there's nothing new. And for them, I would perhaps say this movie is a 3.0 rated one. However, there are scenes in the movie - like the one where Kalpana is killed, that reminds you of the Gabbar Singh terror when he killed Thakur Baldev Singh's family in Sholay. Let the background music do the terrorizing. Good job with music there!

Talking about music, it's hard not to say that some part of the climax music simulates the signature Doordarshan (DD) music. Here's a version of the DD music on youtube (quality sucks on this video link).

Aamir Khan had mentioned in an interview that a tight screenplay attracted him to Ghajini and I would tend to agree with him on that. Asin Thottumkal has delivered a paragon of power-packed performance. Asin has a striking resemblance to Mallika Sherawat and reminds of Revathi just before the 'Kaise Mujhe Tum' song. Jiah Khan is passe.

No complaints from the rest of the departments. Just like how I said earlier, the screenplay and direction are too good and magnetic; and overshadow rest of the things.

think M Rating: 3.5/5.0