"Ghajini"

Saw "Ghajini" yesterday. First things first, the movie is definitely a good effort though not a great one. The director has taken an exquisite story line from “Memento” and added the right amount of spice to make it lucid for the ordinary tamil movie buff. I should say that he has succeeded to a great extent at it. But in his efforts to spice up the story, he loses track in the second half and the movie becomes an intolerable drag.

The movie starts well by portraying how a “short term memory loss” patient, who loses his memory every 15 mins, handles his life with no ones help. The flash back scenes in the first half with the charming Surya and exuberant Asin are such a delight to watch. Especially, the scenes when Surya goes to meet the girl who claims to be his girlfriend and she goes on & on to him and where Asin takes Surya to the new year party as fake Sanjay Ramasamy are top notch.

Surya, as Sanjay Ramasamy, a successful business magnet and a multi millionaire and as a short term memory loss patient, has done complete justice to the role. He sizzles in the romantic scenes and excels in the action scenes. He is completely believeable both as a business tycoon and as a patient. His body language in both these roles are laudable. I have one question for Surya’s costume designer, why the hell did he come with an idea of red, orange and violet pants for him? Though his costumes were best in the scenes, it was very irritating in the song sequences. But even for a Surya fan like me, a few scenes where he reminds us of the surya in “Nandha” are very disturbing and which could have been easily avoided.

Asin is a pleasant surprise. She was cute in “Ullam Ketkume” and I immediately liked her. In this movie she is not only adorable but is also full of energy. She is a perfect fit for the role and carries it out remarkably well till the end. This movie will be a very good break for her and I am sure she must have captured millions of hearts, already.

Now coming to the few glitches in the movie; Nayanthara was a complete disaster. To put it in simple words, she is fat and also very artificial in acting. The less said about her, the better. The double role of the villain is totally unnecessary and irrelevant to the storyline of the movie. Asin not knowing who Surya is till the end, is little disappointing.

Music by Harris Jeyaraj was very mediocre except for only 2 songs, “Suttum vizhi sudare” and “Oru maalai ilaveyil”. Both these melodies are addictive. Background score was very jarring in the action scenes. It’s high time he stops using those people signing in foreign language chorus in the background. It’s plain irritating.

If only the director would have avoided the double role of the villain and also reduced the length of the movie in the second half, the film would have been a slick thriller. Setting aside the few mess ups, “Ghajini” is definitely worth a watch for Director Murugadoss’s daring attempt, Asin’s lovable bubbly acting and of course, Surya’s incredible performance.