ROAR OF THE BORE

Ghajani: Movie Review
Rating: I am still searching the bottom of the barrel

Three weeks after watching a tortured expression of a grim-faced Aamir Khan staring down at me with an intimidating stare from the billboards , all bulging triceps and tattoo marks all over, with loud proclamations of a monster hit with Rs 170 crores in the producers kitty, I ventured this week end to watch Ghajini with keen anticipation of wholesome entertainment. Three painful , excruciating hours later, I stepped out of the multiplex where even the wintry evening smog was welcome inhalation. It sure was a monstrous bore, a completely predictable dark film with an inane plot headed nowhere. In short, Ghajini is a technically polished , massively self-obsessed B-grade South Indian rasam masala –mix film, pretending to be a complex modern psychological thriller. What a gargantuan meltdown!

I am clueless to several irrational stupidities in the film;

1. Since short-term memory loss happens to Aamir’s character every 15 minutes, how does he even know or remember the beginning of his whole mission? Shouldn’t then his start be on a completely new slate?
2. How does he suddenly become a dangerous psychopath, with almost superhero strength? And pray, the tattoos on his body have no linkage to the movie? They are actually totally irrelevant to the script.
3. How come no one has ever seen a single photo of the hot and happening telecom czar in a media infested world, when the man usually travels in a convoy of 4 Mercedes cars, has a huge private jet, a personal assistant running around with a wireless laptop, and publicly shops for strategic hoardings?
4. The incongruous logic of keeping Aamir’s identity a secret becomes a yawning stretch, and lacks complete logic and common sense. It is beyond a point , an unbearable extension of one’s thinning patience.
5. Who is this warped villain, who simultaneously runs a respectable pharma firm, is a day-light killer, donates charity money, runs a child prostitution racket, lives in a shady labrynth of lanes, and has six uncouth bodyguards resembling left-overs from the Lord of the Rings animals who are constantly armed with choppers, knives and sledgehammers. Whew! It is such pedestrian C-grade stuff, I could not believe I was watching the man from Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par and Rang De Basanti.

The film is a mindless orgy of senseless violence, meant to display that the 5ft 4 Aamir Khan can run like a crazed bull on a treadmill, make funny sounds when all tied up, and roar like a raging wild boar prior to being readied for a salami sandwich. It is pitiable cinema. Khan is a studied rehearsed actor , perhaps Ghajini is his way of redefining the phrase , a method in the madness. For Aamir, sadly this movie reflects that there is madness in his method as well. Asin over-acts to the point of exasperation, although in some scenes when she has restrained her facial muscle movements and over-done gesticulations, she is not as grating on your nerves. Jiah Khan is like screeching tyres on a slippery road, while Pradeep Rawat is as repugnant as cockroaches served as croutons in your cream tomato soup. AR Rahman’s music is surprisingly insipid.

If you have already seen the film, which I guess most have by reading the box-office numbers, I am sure it is thanks to the huge hype which Mr Khan relentlessly heaped on us a few days after the Mumbai 26/11 attacks. If you have not seen it, thank your lucky stars and avoid it as you would a common cold. As for buying the DVD of Ghajini, I would not recommend it at all. Imagine having to also see the deleted scenes of this exaggerated nonsense that is nothing but a huge monumental massacre of your sensibilities. And Aamir Khan now also giving you dirty looks from the personal confines of your own dear glass shelf.