Ghajini: An action extravaganza that works

Welcome Hindi cinema's first no-holds-barred action extravaganza. We have had our romantic weepathons, our comic blockbusters, and masala entertainers. This one is three hours of all of those, with a strong undercurrent of action. Unpretentious, it goes all out to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Ghajini, remake of the Tamil hit of the same name, which in turn was ‘inspired’ by Christopher Nolan's cult-and-confused Memento, is perfectly suited to Hindi film audience tastes.

So you have a revenge drama, which has always worked in Hindi cinema, from Sholay to Om Shanti Om. But this one is darker and more angst-ridden than anything you have seen before. Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan) is a man on the prowl. Having lost the love of his life (Asin) to an assailant, Sanjay suffers from short-term memory loss and cannot remember anything for more than 15 minutes. So he clicks pictures and makes notes to remember faces, places, names, and things to do. All he remembers from his past life is the name of the man who killed his love: Ghajini. Sanjay's obsession to get to Ghajini (Pradeep Rawat) and the obstacles that crop up in the form of his own lack of memory is what the film is all about.