The film does not work, its marketing did. It has created a box office history, which is good for its makers, and bad for Aamir Khan, the brand. It has happened in the past, with RGV, and Yashraj Films who frittered away their brand value and goodwill by relying too heavily on their marketing and distribution might instead of making great films.
Ghazini’s story and premise is a standard Southie revenge drama. There is this very bad and ugly-looking guy with gold capped teeth, who kills this girl who is goodness personified, in an extremely cruel manner, and the hero, the girl’s boyfriend, who survives inexplicably, develops an eight pack body and kills the bad guy at the end of the film to avenge her gory death.
Now all Southie directors and writers are under constant pressure to do something NEW and startlingly unexpected, zara hat ke, to add a unique dimension to this archetypal tale. Murugadoss lifts his big idea from Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ in a most thoughtless and stupid manner and this asinine improvisation destroys the pristine quality of a classic genre.
The hero suffers from a kind of amnesia and cannot remember anything beyond fifteen minutes and has to constantly rely on all kinds of references like Polaroid shots, and tattoos carved all over his body, to make some sense out of everything around him. ‘Memento’ showcased the frustrations and the constant struggle of its protagonist, who suffered from a rare but real condition called anterograde amnesia, to piece together his life. Murugadoss employs the idea crudely as a mere subterfuge in Ghajini, in a way that leaves no room for its protagonist, Aamir Khan, the actor, to demonstrate his histrionic prowess; he lands up merely showing off an ‘eight pack’ body and doing Terminator stunts in an insipid, uninspiring, and ludicrous sort of way.
Though the film sticks to the Southie formula, it fails to create the magic of a Rajnikant, Chiranjeevi, or Nagarjuna movie because of fake and unconvincing performances by all its actors and an apparently contrived and extremely illogical and implausible plot and screenplay. It lacks the visceral quality, the essential ingredient of the successful films of this genre, that makes you root for the hero when he goes for the ultimate revenge and annihilation of the wily, the vile, the despicable, the disgusting, the fat, the ugly, and the black bully, raining ghoonsas, laats, haaths, and pummelling the bastard to pulp and breaking and cutting him into bits and pieces amidst the audience’s applause and ecstatic roars of approval.
Whose failure is it? Obviously the director’s, and the actor’s who is known to make the camera roll a few pages before the actual lines being shot so that he could get into the right frame of mind. Aamir screws up badly in a run of mill role that has been essayed by Rajani, Chiranjeevi, and Nagarajuna with great conviction, ease, aplomb, and effect in one Southie film after another without the aid of an eight-pack body.
And now about the sole selling proposition of the film, Aamir and his eight pack body. There is a saying in the Bhojpuri heartland that aptly sums up the whole exercise. ‘Moos motaihe, lodha hoihien’ (If a mouse puts on weight, he can at best become a grinding stone used in north Indian households to ‘peeso’ masala). What has he gained as an actor doing this utterly needless crap? Is he happy being a ‘lodha’, the grinding stone? He has abused his body and shamed his craft by doing something that is aesthetically so revolting and useless for his role. He must have visualized the film’s posters and all those fiberglass replicas of his eight pack body and said yes to the film. Or was he trying to be two up on SRK? Who fucking knows, our film stars behave like such idiots at times.
Aamir Khan must decide what he wants to become in life, a great actor or a marketing genius who reads a script of a film for its promotional potential alone.
Should I analyze this film further? I don’t think it is needed. It is a film riddled with big and tiny holes and it will be an excruciatingly painful intellectual exercise to recall and recount them. Moreover, why should I sprinkle salt and pepper on a bad wound? Jo obviously itna nanga hai, uska cheerharan karne mein sala mazaa bhi nahin aata.
Yet I must say a few words about the '15 minutes amnesia' of the hero. If he can remember things for fifteen minutes alone, how do we know at what point those fifteen minutes start and end? My dear fellow Murugadoss, you are such a genius. You have confined time into a fifteen minute space yaar. You can cut water, and capture the thin air in your palms man. Hats off to your idiocy brother. You will go a long way in the Bollywood absurdistan. Isi baat par pesh hai ek taro-taaza sher:-
Ghajini hit hai, Aamir khan fit hai
Muruga ne bana dala sab ko murga
Wah bhai wah, wah bhai wah,
Bollywood ha ha, bollywood he he,
Chalo chaupati pe chana khayenge;
Khud bhi chutia banenge,
Auron ko bhi banayenge.
A sin in a sinful world
There is something very beautiful and inventive about the name of the actor who is film's heroine. Her name is Asin. There is an interesting story behind the name. It is a combination of Sanskrit/Hindi letter A (as in Amar) and the English word Sin. And thus the word Asin, which means total absence of sin. Asin in an industry of sinners! What an antithesis my Lord!
And just a useful hint to those who so far have neither watched Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (RNBDJ) nor Ghajini on big screen and would like to pick just one of the two for a family excursion; RNBDJ is a far better option ADAT.
RKS
