Ghajini

A good movie - at least a different treatment than many violent love stories. Aamir is as usual brilliant and the heroine Asin is good in spite of this being her first Hindi movie.

The movie has lots of shades of South Indian movies in its music, dance, and fights. In certain parts the movie has some illogical sequences if you start analysing. e.g. MD of a big telecom corporation does not go personally to select a site for putting an advertising hoardings. Or the henchman of a Haryanavi don are all South Indians. Or the damsel in distress not using texting on the mobile.

But technicaly it is a brilliant and gripping picturisation. Narrative keeps moving with good camera work, colors, editing, background music and sound affects. The song picturisation is again very South Indian.

The start is violent, middle has some violence and the ending is quite violent. The violence however is a necessity at various places but some gory details that are kept in today's movies for realism sake could have been left out.

The romance of the Sanjay and Kalpana is handled brilliantly with Asin's innocent and carefree side and Aamir's quiet admiration turning into adoration.

All in all it is quite a complete Bollywood movie with a good mix of light comedy, suspense and tragedy, fast paced action, and just the right concoction of human emotions of love, anguish, pain and anger.

People compare it to the original movie 'Memento' but that is unfair. When the director producer have acknowledged that their movie is an improvised version of the Hollywood movie then we should accept that. Obviously an Indianisation of the plot had to happen and songs and dance had to be introduced, so why this hullabulloo? People say that it was not a movie worthy of Aamir's skills - but then do we think any other actor could have done more justice to the role of a person afflicted by Short Term Memory Loss. People say that the movie is very loud ... but aren't most Indian movies. So why do we benchmark our movie against its Englsh original rather than compare it with other movies of a similar genre.

Ghajini has also proved that Aamir is versatile enough to be able to handle romantic as well as violent kind of roles apart from the thinking person's role like in Lagaan, Rang De Basanti or Taare Zamin Par. Cheers to that !!

Rating : *****

Slumdog Millionaire

Rags to Riches story ..... a wonderful tribute to Mumbai and its people .... a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating !!!  This is how the Western media and film critics have rated this movie.  However it is just another  run of the mill Bollywood movie.  If one wants to watch a realistic view of Indian slums and poverty then one should rather watch a Satyajit Ray (the Appu trilogy), Shyam Benegal (Manthan and Ankur), Govind Nihalani (Ardh Satya & Aakrosh), Gautam Ghoshe (Paar) or Prakash Jha (Damul).  If one wants to see normal Masala bollywood potboilers on the theme of a life of crime and luck paying big then why not watch umpteen movies like Bunty Aur Bubbly, Dayavan, Nayakan, Sarkar or Oye lucky..... etc. In fact a very recent rags to riches story about real India and its struggle is Shyam Benegal's Welcome to Sajjanpur   

Slumdog Millionaire is like any other B grade movie being churned out by Indian film makers and hardly touches any chord with the audience.  It makes fun of India specially Mumbai as a city where you have to be a local goon, a murderer or a pimp to make it big or you have to simply be plain lucky as the Slumdog Millionaire Jamal Malik is. Jamal has hardly done anything in his entire life shown in this movie....at least his elder brother Salim has some guts and gumption to fight his way out of trouble. 

Thankfully for us Indians it has even made fun of the Brits who can be sold any story about Indian History by a 12 year old kid. Queen Mumtaz died in a road accident, and that Emperor Khurram wanted to make a Hotel but died before it could get completed. 

The film has illogical continuity and is badly researched.  The story ends in the period of late 2005.  Therefore the scene about a young Jamal getting Amitabh Bachchan's autograph amongst the crowd mad about their superstar idol must have been early 1990s.  Bachchan's helicopter lands near the slums somewhere and a madly euphoric crowd wants to catch a glimpse of the superstar.  However in the early 90s Amitabh was already on a downhill path and almost semi-retired from films.  

Again Jamal and Salim both of whom have never cared abour their studies grow up into fluent English speakers and Jamal even develops a natural British accent.  Salim's voice goes from a child's voice to a much deeper voice in the early teens back to a child like shrill voice when he turns a full-fledged henchman of the local goon. 

All questions on the quiz show relate to the events in the life of a slumdog, the show is telecast live, even in India it is not called Kaun Banega Crorepati by its host and after whole night of 3rd degree torture Jamal goes on to participate in the Quiz Show without even a scratch on him physically or mentally.  This cannot happen in real life but remember this movie is about hope and optimism ...remember that its a Cinderella story!!

The film has no technical brilliance either. The music is the usual Rehman and at various places like in the scene when Jamal is searching for his beloved in the brothels the music seems 'inspired' from Lakshmikan Pyarelal's Choli ke peeche kya hai. 

Its just that this is a movie made by a Brit that this movie is beng hailed as something extraordinary;  otherwise Salaam Bombay was almost a similarly dark narrative about the city slums of India.  How I wish an Indian makes a film on the life in Harlem of New York or of the East End of London and then let us see how the same Western media reacts - I am sure they will call it blasphemy !!  We Indians have seen so many movies of this or similar themes.  One of the best ones made in India on the topic of poverty and street children is a film called Boot Polish.  Slumdog Millionaire will get the Oscars ahead of Taare Zameen Par makes me laugh at the system of film selection at the big western film festivals..... but how can a citizen of a Third World under-nourished crime infested country like India laugh on the Gora Sahibs ......Amen ! 

Rating : *****