ROLE OF A PERFORMANCE

Is Aamir Khan the greatest Indian actor in today's times? No, he is not. Is he the biggest star? No, not that either. The best way to define Aamir is that he is a star who seeks otherness in what he does. There have been times when his choices have been highly questionable. He has also been accused of ghost-directing his films, which is something only a director who has fallen out with him can prove.

But Ghajini, despite its structural loopholes and the actor's eagerness to flaunt his newly built muscles, manifests a fact once more. In other words, Aamir Khan works hard: one could say, more than most of his fellow stars have ever done. (If any of his counterparts works harder, it certainly doesn't show).

Cut to Aamir in Ghajini which should possibly be the biggest blockbuster of 2008. As a character with short term memory loss on Mission Vendetta, Aamir as Sanjay Singhania exhales fury and anger. His nostrils flare up; the voice turns guttural; and the eyes show what being menacing is all about. When he wants to emancipate himself from the clutches of cops, for instance, he comes across as an untamed beast whose natural habitat is distanced from civilization by several light years.

Before the change takes place, the actor in his avatar of an industrialist is polished, handsome and articulate. His dress sense (thanks to Van Heusen?) makes statements of uniqueness every time we see him onscreen. But, once his character undergoes a transformation – after the brutal murder of his girlfriend as also the injury to the head – what we see is a man which is as distanced from the industrialist as the Nile is from the Ganges.

The sophistication is gone. Understandable, since he has forgotten what being polished is all about. While one can question how he manages to have an unchanged haircut all through, Aamir's sincerity is visible in each and every frame. As the revenge seeker, he makes Singhania as memorable as his near-perfect act of ACP Rathore in Sarfarosh.

Why the performance merits admiration is mainly because of his ability to conquer the limitations imposed by a flaw-laden script. Not only that, there are other bad eggs in the basket too. Pradeep Rawat as the villain (complete with the golden tooth popularized by Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven) is an absolute disaster. Jiah Khan fumbles her way through a badly written role of a young student of medicine who decides to become a sleuth without any explanation whatsoever. Songs assault the viewer out of the blue, breaking the tempo of a fast moving plot guiltlessly.

So many shortcomings could have killed a film: even if we were to keep aside, the human tendency to nitpick for the heck of it. But, the reality is that Ghajini is a super hit already. Aamir is the only reason, the only explanation. The film's fate shows the difference one performance can make.