During the weekend I watched Ghajini with my parents. I had already watched the Telugu version of the movie and wasnt really keen on checking out the hindi version, but the easy availability of tickets made me change my mind.
Firstly the bad reviews the movie has been receiving is quiet unwarranted. I felt the movie was pretty good and very entertaining. For a running time of 3 hours I did not feel distracted for much of the movie (except the songs). What I loved most about the movie was that this is one movie that can be truly said to have been “inspired” by its Hollywood counterpart. There were logically questionable events in the movie but considering the movie had a complex story (and it was already 3 hrs long) it can be excused.
The romance(not the action) is what holds you to your seat and the charming love story had me smiling more than once. The character of Kalpana is so beautifully written that this movie is one of the few movies in which you genuinely see the characters fall in love. This is visibly the strength of the movie.
On the flip side, what seemed odd to me was Aamir Khan’s height in the movie. For the romance it looked fine but in the action scene he seem to come out a little short(excuse the pun :P ). Its not that I think that short people cant fight, but the height seemed important for this movie, the same way as people like to watch beautiful looking people fall in love on the big screen. Other than that shortcoming (again I know) Aamir is pretty impressive. His effort with regard to body building helped the movie. The movie is clearly engaging and fun to watch.
All in all Ghajini is a good experiment for Indian cinema. Its not perfect but it sure takes the cake for participation.