Bollywood back to square!
Ghajini and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – beyond doubt two of the biggest films of 2008 and films that had been awaited for a long time by all movie buffs. To be honest, I was not interested in seeing either. Rab Ne … did not even feature in my list of 2008 movies to watch and Ghajini had bored me to death with Aamir Khan and his haircut vulgarly splashed all over.
I watched Ghajini before going for RNBDJ (Woah! Even the bloody shortform sounds BIG!). Aamir had failed to impress me either with his haircut or with his deadly promos on TV. What finally made me watch the film was the song – Kaise mujhe – beautifully picturised and haunting – and of course the dominating factor was that my fianc'© literally dragged me to the film!
The film can be summed up in one sentence – Maar dhaar se bharpur paarivaarik saamaajik chitra. The movie was a disappointment. But, Aamir was truly awesome. I mean, he hardly had any dialogues in the film. He is either making guttural sounds, or staring vacantly into space, or giving people killer looks – actually. This guy sure knows his job. And, even in a typical Bollywood masala film he can make an impact. But then, Aamir is not John Abraham – we all know about his eight pack abs – you had to be in coma for the last three months atleast to not know about Aamir and the story of the eight packs! At the same time we agree, that Aamir is not John. So, why the indecent display of skin please? It is just not Aamir. But again, neither is Ghajini for that matter.
Asin did a decent job, though she seemed a combination of Mother Teresa and some self-appointed saviour of the down-trodden. Right from helping physically disabled kids to busting a kidney and trafficking racket – she did it all! And, Jiah Khan too did an ok job with the Americanized English-Hindi et al. Though, why would a medical student turn into an amateur detective is something I would like to ask Mr Murgadoss. Mr Ghajini was the biggest disappointment. Never was the loss of Amrish Puri felt more devastatingly. And, why was Mr Ghajini speaking in Mumbaiya Hindi with a distinct South Indian accent? Maybe Gulshan Grover or even Ashish Vidyarthi could have done a better job. I would have also liked to see Shashank Ghosh (he was there in Aamir, I believe) in the role. I mean you are naming the film after the villain and you also have a protagonist like Aamir, so the villain should have been more than a typical caricature of a villain – white boots, white shirt, white trousers, gold chains, earrings, tooth caps and what-have-you.
The worst part about the film were the songs. Except the Kaise mujhe song, all the rest seemed to be happening just for the heck of happening. C’mon, I had thought the days of such films were over. Sad. Bollywood was doing such a great job in 2008 – Dasvidaniya, Raock On!!, Sorry Bhai!, Oh My God!, Aamir – flawed films, but atleast films that tried to make a difference – I had almost forgotten that films like Ghajini were also part of Bollywood. It was a jarring reminder.
After Ghajin I had to watch RNBDJ. I mean, it couldn’t be worse right? How wrong I was! The name Yash Raj Films should have scared me, but undaunted I went ahead. An exceptionally bad film, no doubt. But, SRK was good – in parts though. Punjab Power, Lighting up your lives, Surinder Sahni was sporadically brilliant. SRK’s common man was very common indeed. Right from his gait, to the way he smiles shyly was heart warming. Especially at the end where Suri stands with his wife after winning the dance competition. Notice his pride apparent in his swelled chest, his smile and his eyes. Brilliant.
But, unfortunately Aditya Chopra did not want to stop at that. He had to bring in Raj. Now, I need to make one thing clear Mr Chopra – take any common man off the streets, mustached if you please, and just shave off his bloody facial growth and color his hair and give him some badly color coordinated clothes, and let’s see if he turns into Raj. Guess what? He doesn’t. No amount of coloring and Bobby Khosla’s haathon ka jaadu can transform a Suri into a Raj. And, just in case, you got it wrong, no woman can fail to recognize her man just because he shaved off his moustache! I mean, what world do you guys live in?
Anyway, that’s a film and a Yash Raj film at that – so they should be forgiven such glaring loopholes, I guess. By the way, what was it with the Church and the Temple and the Dargah in the same song? Promoting religious tolerance, are we? Good good. The film ends on that typical note – good Indian girl – how can she leave her husband. Give me a break!
Newbie Anushka Sharma is fair and colorless. Suri is good and Vinay Pathak’s Bobby Khosla is brilliant. He is one actor who can hold his own even with an SRK in the frame and can actually draw the attention away from him at that! SRK’s Raj was plain over-the-top. His Taani Partner act got on to the nerves. The best part about the film was Suri’s voiceover as the credits rolled with the pics of the honeymooners. Nice touch.
All said and done, two bad films, two good performances. Needless to say, Aamir steals the show. He manages to shine despite all that blood around him. Where as RNBDJ is highly avoidable, Ghajin can be watched just for Aamir’s performance.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I seriously don’t understand why the PFC writers have to live in a world of their own! Any movie which has got a big name (as actor/director/producer) AND is liked by masses has to be panned by PFC.
Anuraag Kashyap had written once in these columns that it is these ‘money making’ films which let people make smaller experimental films like the ones you listed.
I don’t say that Ghajini or RNBDJ (which I have not watched) are the best of Hindi cinema. Far from it.
Remember Sydney Sheldon’s novels? Everyone loved reading them but nobody ‘admitted’ reading them!
I dont think the movies were bad, just plain average.
But i liked RNBDJ more than Ghajini.
Also i dont understand what was special about Aamir’s performance in Ghajini. He has done far better than this, and for me his acting in Ghajini, wud be like those in movies like Ishq, Raja Hindustani, nothing great to crow about.
I liked SRK’s Suri act much more in RNBDJ.
All in all, i can say two very average movies. But with Bollywood mainstream cinema, touching the depths this year, i guess movies like RNBDJ and Ghajini wud be the best on offer.
I found Ghajini pure torture.One good thing about this crap movie is that after a long time we get a cartoon villain to the likes of Gulshan grover and Prem chopra,Shakti Kapoor who did well in the torture series in 80s and 90s.But unfortunately the villain here fails to hold a candle to his illustrious predecessors.One more difference between 80’s,90’s torture flicks and this one is that there is no rape scene.Rape seems to be out of fashion nowadays in hindi cinema.Otherwise it is a picture perfect candidate for torture series.
I also think that as much hype was there about this movie before release,there seems to be as much hype and wrong information about its boxoffice collections by the likes of Taran Adarsh.I watched this movie in a suburban theatre(single screen class B) on Monday and I expected that I may not get ticket,but was surprised that tickets were easily available and there were hardly 50 people in theatre.This film is meant for B and C audiences and this one belongs to that.So i have clear doubts whether it is accepted by audience
@ Abhi
As far as i know, Sheldon novels were a rage in my college days, and people actually used to discuss endlessly about em.
Me never liked Sheldon much, except some novels, my favs were Alistair McLean and Frederick Forsyth.
@Abhishek
I still read Sheldon novels once in a while and I openly admit it. It’s the best time pass thing available. But, that does not justify Ghajini, much less RNBDJ.
@Sharath
Despite the movie being pure torture, Ghajini is THE 2008 superhit. Not only are the multiplexes overcrowded – trust me, they are – atleast the ones in my city – but even in small towns where tickets are generally priced at 20 bucks max, they are being sold in black for as much as 150!
@ Sharath
Ghajini & RNBDJ have had a bumper release with some 1200 odd prints across the country.surely with such a wide release it should be easy to get tickets in some of the screens at least.Remember the economics of films have changed now.These days you make a wide release & cover up maximum in the first week itself with the first weekend being very crucial.There’s no funda of 100 days, silver jubilee, golden jubilee etc any more.
Frankly speaking both RNBDJ & Ghajini are decent mainstream movies thats it- nothing great about them.But compared to most of the commercial potboilers dished out this year, these were still much better.Even I liked RNBDJ much better than Ghajini.Having seen the original tamil & the telugu version more than once, I had nothing new to expect from the hindi version.The hindi version was just a slightly modified version of the tamil version- better climax & a lot more gloss thanks to the mega budget.Whereas SRK as Suri rocked & I could actually smile when I left the hall after the movie was over.
100 days are passe. If a movie lasts 3 weeks, high chances it has done the business.
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In that respect, Ghajini was such a huge marketing machine and as per the reports that I have been reading, it was sold at a very high price so it will have to do an extraordinary business to be certified as a Hit.
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RNBDJ was a low budget (comparatively) movie with minimal hype and it has done business of 70 crores (net).
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Yup, I agree with Sethu,
There is nothing great about RNBDJ or I assume Ghajini (haven’t watched it). They are decent main stream movies having the biggest stars.
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I suspect Chandni Chowk will also fall under the same category. Hopefully, it will be better than SiK.
“Asin did a decent job, though she seemed a combination of Mother Teresa and some self-appointed saviour of the down-trodden.”
Are you talking about Asin the actor..or Kalpana the character?Confusing because you mentioned both in the same breath
“And, why was Mr Ghajini speaking in Mumbaiya Hindi with a distinct South Indian accent? ”
..and I thought it was Haryanvi all this while
“The worst part about the film were the songs. Except the Kaise mujhe song, all the rest seemed to be happening just for the heck of happening. C’mon, I had thought the days of such films were over.”
You did not watch the movie..the way I watched it..illogically.
“Bollywood was doing such a great job in 2008 – Dasvidaniya, Raock On!!, Sorry Bhai!, Oh My God!, Aamir – flawed films, but atleast films that tried to make a difference”
You seem to not mind flawed by different menu but not quite the same in case of same old tried and tested(tasted)menu.
@Sourav
Yes, i was talking about Asin the actor – as in she did a decent job – and Kalpana the character – but isnt that natural?
I honestly did not think Mr Ghajini was mouthing Haryanvi
Why do i have to watch a film illogically? – Just to justify it? Not done
I don’t mind flawed films as long as they try treading a different path. Very rarely do you come across that master director who manages to dish out a film completely flawless. Even the great masters falter.
I also thought that Ghajini was speaking in Haryanvi
South Indian accent…absolutely naah.
But this comes to my mind suddenly: No body said a thing about ‘Circuit’ (Arshad Warsi) even when he wears much more gold than ‘Ghajini saab’!
@Abhishek
Circuit was meant to be funny – so teh gold kind of added to that. Mr Ghajini was THE villain – and he became a caricature, unfortunately
I realy wonder why no one, including the police officer, recognised THE Sanjay Sighania, the richest man in Mumbai. I understand Kalpana not recognising him because she lives in her own little universe.. She has too many everyday battles to fight to know who owns a cellular network company..But the cops also need to ask Mr. Ghajini himself who Sanjay is?? Ha ha ha ha ha!!
@Arati
Yeah, and Kalpana still fails to understand he’s THE Sanjay Singhania even after he comes to party and signs a cheque of 5 lakhs 4 some charity as Sanjay! Plus no one in the entire party knows who Sanjay is. Strange, very strange! But, that’s Bollywood for ya
i felt i jst watched a tamil film starring aamir. songs,song picturisation,music,BGM,direction, performances, scenes, humour…evrythng was very tamilian in nature.not that im against tamil cinema…but cant c aamir do th growling effect lik a surya,vikram…and yes thy had ghajini speaking in haryanvi…and was directed to do an over th top performance. asin was nice. but th film seems very fake n 80 ish. dnt kno why. though aamir has put in evrythng. does pepl wit short memory talk less??? and look absent minded al th time???
Medha and Arati…
To answer as to why people did not discover who sanjay Singhania…Aamir answered this question in a series on TV called face the reviewer…
He says “Times of India is a big newspaper house…and their head is called Pradeep Jain..I have never seen how he looks like..and I can name 11 other people who are huge industrialist but are not media friendly and are faceless…and on top of this Sanjay singhania just arrives from the US” ..verbatim
lol
it’s over bearing people like u who make this forum get its “typical” tag. people who like only the movies they make and hate karan johar and yash chopra. haha
also, i bet u LOVED no smoking and found it to be sensible with all sorts of hidden and coded messages and that it made u think and get nightmares and all sorts of BS that you people harp on about.
oh how can i forget that masterpiece hazaaron khwahishein aisi? i’m sure u were drooling at that movie…
now i’m not gonna be here defending a girl being blind enough not to recognise her man just cos he shaved his moustache, don’t get it twisted. it’s just that u have to be real and sometimes get off your high horse and see movies as just that. movies. not something that can bring about world peace or destroy your sense of comfort.
couldn’t agree more on this , actually it matches what i felt after this movie , and top of it these are most hit movie of yr no wonder
we make crap movie on the name of masses movie
i would think 10000 time before goin to watch amir in these masala movies . cant never see amir in this medicore
I thoroughly enjoyed Ghajini – there are loopholes but the pace was fast enough for me to not notice them during the course of the movie. This, along with Aamir’s brilliant performance, was where – in my view – Ghajini scored over RNBDJ. The latter had its moments but I found it boring in most parts.
Medha, I disagree that being back to square one (if that is what you call these movies) is necessarily regressive or a bad thing. It is the success of such commercial potboilers that keep the industry & the cinema halls going and generate jobs for a large number of people – not movies such as Aamir or Oh My God. Even if you ignore the employment aspect and focus purely on entertainment, I dont think you would get the latter without enough success stories among the former.