Gajini!

If one went to gajini with memento etched in his mind, he will be dissapointed. One must understand the bottomline ; gajini is an indian movie. Although 'Gajini' has borrowed the core concept from memento , the story drawn around it is a typical tamil flick with action sequences and duets in beautiful locations. That was to be expected. Just a fool would mimic memento exactly with alternating 15 minute pieces and a story so dense that one would have to wrack his brain to understand what was happening. So i am not going to make any comparisons between the two movies. By itself, Gajini was a great movie.

The movie revolves around sanjay ramaswamy played by surya. Sanjay is a rich entreprenuer who after an 'incident' suffers from short term memory loss. He has only one goal : to avenge the death of his lover. The beauty is (the memento snip) sanjay cannot remember anything that happened more than 15 minutes ago. To counter this he uses all sorts of aids and means to keep track of what he was doing and what he should do. The movie jusxtaposes sanjay's past and present and showcases it so that the movie moves at a quick pace. Surya has delivered a great performance ,as expected. His mannerisms and moves are good to watch especially as a memory loss patient who tries to untangle the maze of riddles that surround him. Even as the gregarious business man he has performed neatly. Asin is a treat for the eye and livens up the screen with her presence. Nayan tara is the only aberration. I would have liked someone else in her place.

Harris jeyaraj to me is a dissapointment in this movie. Apart from two songs all others are average. Even the background score was sporadic and unpleasant. For a movie of this sort background score could have played a huge role reflecting the moods and thoughts of the protagonist. The fight sequences are good if one has made his peace with men flying about defying gravity. After countless tamil movies, i have come to accept it and no longer feel odd when i see a man flying around revolving in the air and hitting a lamp post. Camera work is good and the movie is visually captivating using colours and shades to convey the mood of the scene.

Overall gajini is a different movie by tamil standards and a must watch. The story line although diluted holds some of the anguish and tension of memento and is gripping.