I didn't know
Ripley Down Under had been made into a movie. There are 3 (or 4) books in the Ripley series by Patricia Highsmith. The first was
The Talented Mr. Ripley. It was made into a movie by Antony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow & others. A
really good movie, with very dark undertones. I read all the books after I saw the movie and I found them quite good. I'll try and locate
Ripley Down Under.
I watched
Ghajini last weekend in CBE. What they say is right: The movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the
Memento. In fact, mentioning
Memento &
Ghajini in the same sentence would be a slur to
Memento.
============= SPOILER ALERT (some spoilers ahead) ============
It has been many years since I've seen a Hindi movie, so that could have been part of the reason why I was squirming in my seat with discomfort. Why is everything
so unreal? Does a succesful business man go to a meeting dressed like
that? With his sleeves rolled up with his biceps showing, looking dangerously gay? And a convoy of
four cars always? Ahem!
I really liked the way Asin looked, but she was overacting all the way in the uh, "funny" scenes. I liked the way they did the scene with the other actor who Asin was training to impersonate Aamir Khan's character. That scene was genuinely funny. The rest of the comedy scenes felt totally over the top simply because everybody was trying so hard to be funny.
The scene where they enter the new flat, and make impressions of their feet in that clay(?) tablet was quite touching. So also was the scene where she'd sold her Amby to get some money to him.
The action in the second half was nice, but the action scenes in the first half felt too choreographed. That brings me to the cop. Wow! Do young cops in Mumbai dress that way while they're on work? Uber-tight tees and tight jeans? And he was trying pretty hard to look tough, and ened up looking pretty constipated. I couldn't much see the point of his character either. Maybe he was meant to play a larger role, but the script got changed in between. Aamir Khan played the crazed, cornered creature well in the last hour of the movie.
Coming to a main plot-point, except for 2-3 scenes in the last 45 minutes or so, I just forgot that the main character could remember stuff for just 15 minutes. They made a big show of the camera and the pictures, but the plot didn't really depend that much on the pictures or the short-term memory loss in the first half (unlike in the
Memento, where this was what ran the entire movie). The character could have had total amnesia for the first half (except for the photograph of Jiah Khan and the pursuit of the cop & Jiah Khan) and it wouldn't have changed the story none.
I wouldn't have felt this disappointed if the movie didn't have Aamir Khan associated with it. Anybody else, well, I'd have just dismissed it as a typical knockoff of an idea in a Hollywood movie with a lot of bollywoodishness thrown in. A plot with so much potential for a dark, brooding and scary atmosphere was wasted with the frequent songs and uh, comedy.
I feel better now that I've got it out

No offence meant to those who liked the movie. The opninons are mine alone.