Comparitive review - Ghajini

Spoilers ahead

Well well... I got to seeing the much-awaited Ghajini (Aamir Khan's latest) and if you haven't seen the Tamil original, there's a lot to look forward to. Of course in one catch phrase, I'd call it a violent love story. Aamir of course looks like a million bucks... The first time he takes his shirt off to reveal his newly sculpted amazing 6 packs, it almost looks digitized. He can give those 300 men a run for their money, no questions asked. But other than that, the screenplay and everything else is straight off Murugadoss' original Tamil movie, featuring Surya, of the same name. In fact many of the actors have been kept the same, including Asin, the inspector, Riaz Khan and the blind uncle whom Asin helps cross the streets.

Having seen the original, I did expect a lot of improvements... and while there weren't a "lot", there were a few. Atleast the new movie has a reason why it is named Ghajini in the first place while that point is still unclear in the Tamil version... It almost seems like Aamir watched the original, liked almost everything about it and just had the director stitch the few loopholes to make a more seamless fabric. Asin was far better and her role, though the same, cuter in the Tamil movie. Here I had the feeling that she overacted a tad. However the reviews outside are glowing and it looks like she's set the right foot into Bollywood... good for her. Other than that, in my unsolicited opinion, I thought Surya was better for the role than Aamir was. Aamir is a more mature actor and is no longer set in any mould to carry off the chocolate-boy romancer in the singular romance part of the movie nor the obsessive grunting revenge man wielding an array of weapons. It felt like he's stuck in a bit of a limbo. I thought the role was made for Surya though and he was more convincing... However not to take anything off the stellar performance by Aamir. I doubt any one could've done as much justice to this role and looked the part of it and as has been mentioned everywhere, even with the lesser dialogues, his eyes speak volumes.

Other than that, I did think Nayanthara had overacted immensely in the Tamil version and I found that she crawled my nerves effortlessly and was glad to see Jiah Khan, both clothed and subdued in this one and it sort of took the focus off the overly meddlesome med student who couldn't keep her nose to herself. So I am glad for that. Also, importantly the climax and the crux of the story was a bit different in the Hindi version and I liked it better.. But it was also more brutal.. and all in all, the movie is not a feel-good one. Indeed the dull clunk of the iron bar ending lives of many in the movie has a haunting quality about it and I've found myself pinching my ears shut and watching through slitted eyes. Coming to the senstive issue, the music. Hey, I am big ARR fan and everyone knows that and by itself, I think this album is great, especially Guzarish... but maybe in comparison, I liked Harris Jeyaraj's score for the Tamil one, including the BG music and the songs. Maybe this is just like movies don't match their book originals...

I realize that this review must be extremely odd for the ones who haven't actually seen the Tamil version. So, to assuage your worries, I bet you will enjoy Aamir Khan in this movie and will certainly laud it as a good to Hindi cinema for the year 2008. Absolutely worth a watch..