Ghajini
Well not a review, but few thoughts that come to my mind after seein the film.
But first of all, Ghajini is a good movie. Does what it is meant to do. Entertain.With amazing marketing and brand of Aamir Khan associated with it, no wonder it has become one of the highest earning films of all time!
So you take product developed and successfully sold in US and then remake it multiple times in India and still it is big hit. Why? As it adds Indianess to the product. Just think how many people would have watched the movie if screenplay was not adopted. If there were no songs, no herione, no item numbers? How many people would have watched if the complex screenplay from Memento was kept as it is with 2 separate tracks going on? I doubt it could have been even 10% business maker as it is doing now.
Lesson, creating me-too or to be politically correct, inspired products is not bad. But creating screen by screen copy of existing one is. Something which is hit in USA may not work with Indian consumers at all.
Bottom-line keep inspiration to level of inspiration ONLY.
Actually - Memento wasn’t a hit in USA. It was a cult classic. Very few people liked it / understood it. But those who did - watched it multiple times. It was one of those movies whose DVDs sold like hot cakes. But which didn’t do too well in theatres.
I may have forced at least 15 of my friends to watch Memento. Out of them all - 3 loved it. 12 abused me for showing them such a complicated movie.
So it was a very smart thing for the producers of Ghajini to not to plagiarize the entire concept from Memento.
I’m glad Ghajini didn’t spoil Memento for me. I felt Ghajini was nothing like Memento. Besides the fact that in Ghajini - Amir Khan has total amnesia (except remembering one name) and in Memento Guy Pearce remembers his past but just can’t make new memories - the suspense in Ghajini is lacking too. Memento suspense is superbly crafted.
And ofcourse - Memento is backwards. Ghajini is straight forward.
Also - Memento has one of the best scenes in any movies when they show the merging of the white-and-black with colour. The merging of the current events with the future events.
So in summary: Ghajini is good. But Memento is fucking brilliant (pardon my french but no other adjective suits my rating for Memento).
@Ankesh Kothari
Well I am one those who didnt liked the Memento at all. Ghajini is far too better for me