aargh

I am still reeling from Ghajini. I can't quite reconcile to Aamir Khan in such a grating, mindless, hopeless piece of cinema. Throw logic to the winds, add unhealthy doses of screechy sound effects, regress in huge chunks to brain-dead 80s Bollywood. And make me pay 12 dollars for it! Bah. The villains were from some cardboards cutouts from two decades ago- bizarre imports from Tamil cinema (surely?) who couldn't act to save their fat bellies. They just had to stand around, then shout uncontrollably when attacking the hero before- quite literally- falling senseless.

The (absolutely fantastic) premise of the film- short term memory loss- was reduced to a tacky sneering one liner for the villain. We see none of the confusion, twists and mind-numbing intrigue it can provide. We aren't made to empathise (or even really see) what such an ailment could do to a revenge-obsessed man with only himself to rely on. Eventually the film ends up being almost a parody of itself, careening mindlessly from one messy act to another, till you are left wishing that the only short term memory in all of this happens to you, so you forget the last 180mins.

I'm sorry Aamir Khan, maybe its your fault that we now expect a certain kind of film from you- at least slightly intelligent. This experience, though, had nothing cerebral about it, nothing even plain smart. So damn whoever for ruining it for me and making me write such a blog post at 4am.