SHORT TERM GAINS

Amir khan likes to challenge himself. He is excellent more often than not. In this venture, which is essentially a southern flick with similiar sensibilities, he reaches a greater height in terms of performance, less so cinematically. Ghajini promises the moon, and lands in a man hole in earth itself. A breezy rollicking first half takes you through the lives of an upcoming model, Kalpana and a multi millionair cell phone company owner, Sanjay Singhania.One just savours the rare comical streak seldom found in a female lead, and a restrained, gentlemanly demeanor in a male lead also rarely seen these days. Amir and Asin(impressive) strike up a sparkling chemistry inducing chuckles galore through the courting routine. Just then destiny and plot point take a gory twist and the language of sublime cinema is lost to some hellishly orchestrated bloody shots. No one complained about the more grotesque sequences in some well known movies of yesteryears, they were made to order.Here, a seemingly goody goody flick is dragged to messy labriynth as if to make enough impact on a vunerable audiences mind and not to indulge in the plot itself. Here is where an ordinary director and an extraordinary cine czar differ.Murudagoss(hope i got it right) firstly commits a blunder by leaving the two halves ie first and second, poles apart, i couldn't connect to the change in character of Sanjay, his anguish boiling over, tripping him to the brink of insanity. Secondly the rampaging anti hero is repeatedly paired opposite a second female lead which serves very less purpose and dilutes the narrative, the lady also being burdened with these unnecessary numbers (A R Rehman oddly off colour). Three hours plus for a one man army dhishum dhishum saga is a bit of a drag too. Even the hero's 15- minutes -only memory condition could have been handled much better. Action, the strongest point of the story, is more on the Rajni starrer variety, only less airborne in nature.The movie is carried on the well built shoulders of Amir. He is likely to walk off with a few statuettes this year for this performance. Ably supporting him is the spunky Asin who looks set for better things. A special mention for the brilliant photography, cinematography and camera. Good sound recording and saucy dialogues perk up the proceedings,though the same can not be said about the lyrics(latoo...latoo...what's wrong Prasoon Joshi?). A fine movie material which had the potential of a gold mine is squandered by the makers for a short term gain. Alas and alack.