IndiFm review

Let's get one thing straight! To remake a film that not only set box-office records and is referred to as a classic, but also one that by far has the biggest recall value, is playing with aag. Ramgopal Varma, the maverick film-maker, has the courage to remake SHOLAY, a film that continues to be one of the favorite entertainers across the globe.

Comparisons with SHOLAY are obvious and one presumes, RGV knew it all along that's he's bound to feel the heat by those who swear by SHOLAY. To give the credit where it's due, RGV remains faithful to the classic, not once does he deviate from the plot, not once does he twists facts… you know exactly what to expect and where the story is heading.

Jai, Veeru, Thakur, Basanti and above all Gabbar are characters that attained cult status over the years, especially Gabbar. RAMGOPAL VARMA KI AAG does justice to those characters, especially Gabbar, who wore a sinister look on his face all the while. Terror has a new name now. It's Babban!

Write your own movie review of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag
Shortcomings? Oh yes! The romantic track, involving Ajay - Nisha Kothari, is a yawn. To be more specific, the by-now-famous 'suicide' sequence doesn't work. Prior to that, Prashant and Sushmita's meeting with Nisha's parents to seek her hand in marriage for Ajay also falls flat. Besides, this is not for the faint-hearted who detest violent films. RAMGOPAL VARMA KI AAG is sure to give them hiccups.

To cut a long story short, the comparisons with SHOLAY will tell on RAMGOPAL VARMA KI AAG.

In the dark underbelly of Mumbai city, a nihilistic new leader has risen to rule the fetid underworld. His name is Babban [Amitabh Bachchan]. Cruel beyond imagination, psychotically violent and far more devious than any gangster the city has ever known.

Nobody has ever seen him and if they did, they didn't survive to tell the tale. But one man believed in his existence. And that is Inspector Narsimha [Mohanlal], who has a single-minded determination to finish Babban.

RAMGOPAL VARMA KI AAG is SHOLAY, yet different. Sure, the story is the same, but the setting and interpretation of the story are different, very contemporary. As a storyteller, the RGV stamp is visible in a couple of sequences. Note Bachchan's spine-chilling introduction. Nisha's introductory sequence also makes you break into a chuckle. The Sachin episode that gives birth to a bitter enmity is tremendous. The sequence outside the courtroom [Bachchan - Mohanlal face off] is remarkable. Bachchan avenging his brother's death by eliminating Mohanlal's family is terrifying…

After a riveting first half, the pace suddenly slackens in the post-interval portions. Courtesy: The prem kahani. These scenes are far from exciting and only add to the length of the film. In fact, the second hour should be judiciously trimmed by at least 20/25 minutes so that the events unfold at a feverish pace.

There aren't many songs in the narrative. The song that deserves 10 on 10 is 'Mehbooba'. The track is foot-tapping and Urmila's presence sets the screen ablaze. Abhishek Bachchan's appearance in the number will be greeted with surprise and of course, whistles. The Holi track is interesting as well, more for the picturization, not as much for the tune.

Amit Roy's cinematography is outstanding. Note the scene when Bachchan plays with an apple and simply watch the movement of the camera. Awesome! Dialogues [Sajid-Farhad] are in sync with the mood of the film. Besides, the writers haven't lifted any of those legendary lines ['Kine aadmi thhe?', 'Soja, warna Gabbar aa jaayega', 'Yeh haath mujhe de-de Thakur'], but provide interesting alternatives. Action scenes [Pradhyumna] cater more to the desi audiences. Do not expect the MATRIX stunts here!

Bachchan as Babban is exemplary. The veteran has portrayed a variety of roles in his illustrious career: Vijay in ZANJEER, Vijay in DEEWAAR, Jai in SHOLAY, Anthony Gonsalves in AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY, Don/Vijay in DON, Vijay in TRISHUL, Sikandar in MUQADDAR KA SIKANDAR, Vijay Dinanath Chavan in AGNEEPATH, Baadshah Khan in KHUDA GAWAH, DCP Anant in KHAKEE, Debraj Sahai in BLACK, Sarkar in SARKAR and Eklavya in EKLAVYA. Now add Babban to this enviable list!

Mohanlal is topnotch. He matches up to Bachchan in every sequence. Ajay Devgan is competent and balances the mischievous streak with the serious one with ease. Newcomer Prashant Raj does very well. He stands up to the veterans and looks confident all through. Sushmita Sen is restrained. Her performance is perfect. Nisha Kothari does well in her introductory sequence and maintains the pace all through. Sushant Singh is first-rate. Rajpal Yadav irritates. Virendra Saxena is okay. Rasika Joshi makes her presence felt. Sanjay Narvekar, Jeeva, Raju Mavani, Ravi Kale, J.D. Chekravarthy and Suchitra Krishnamoorthi are adequate.

On the whole, RAMGOPAL VARMA KI AAG has a strong first half, but a lengthy and violent second half plays a spoilsport. At the box-office, the film will find the going tough in the wake of its comparisons with the mighty SHOLAY. Its dull opening coupled with uninspiring publicity [the posters/billboards give an impression of an outdated film] will make a dent in its prospects.

2/5

Taran gives it a 2! That's the biggest indicator so far that this might be actually a decent movie!

Ali

Gets a 12A cert in the UK today;

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classifie ... enDocument

...oddly with two different running lengths;

28/08/2007 Adlabs Films (UK) Ltd 163m 15s
30/08/2007 Adlabs Films (UK) Ltd 166m 58s



Ali

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2007/aug/31aag1.htm



One star

Ali

I won't even glance over Taran Adarsh's review until I've seen the film (i.e., if I ever read it); I'm a bit too familiar with this special-ed. mother-fucker's tendency to spoil ever last, minute stinkin' plot detail -- .

How did Moran rate sarkar?

Here you go mere bhaii!

Producer: Ram Gopal Varma
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, Urmila Matondkar, Mohanlal, Rajpal Yadav, Nisha Kothari, Prashant Raj, Gaurav Kapur, Sushant Singh, Abhishek Bachchan, Suchitra Krishnamurthy, Sachin
Music: Ganesh Hegde, Amar Mohile, Prasana Shekhar, Nitin Raikwar
Lyrics: Shabbir Ahmed, Sajid, Farhad, Sarim Momin, Nitin Raikwar
Genre: Action
Recommended Audience: Parental Guidance
Film Released on: 31 August 2007
Reviewed by: Akshay Shah
Reviewer's Rating: 4.0 / 10
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Public Rating Average: 8 / 10 (rated by 4 viewers)
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When Ram Gopal Varma decided to remake SHOLAY I was sceptical; the film is the epitome of 70’s masala cinema and undeniably an outright classic. To this day, SHOLAY remains a film which remains firmly etched in my memory scene for scene, character to character and dialogue to dialogue. However when Ram Gopal Varma later said in interviews that his version was a mere homage to the genre that evolved as a result of SHOLAY and not a direct copy of SHOLAY by any means, I was somewhat relieved as Varma had done a superlative homage earlier with his immensely entertaining SARKAR which was adapted from the classic THE GODFATHER.

So does RAM GOPAL VARMA KI AAG live up to expectations? Does the movie pay a homage to not only the original SHOLAY but to the entire 70’s and 80’s “masala” action genre? Being brutally honest, NO! The movie is a colossal letdown and quiet easily one of the biggest disappointments I’ve seen in recent years.

The story of the movie hasn’t been credited to anyone as the entire storyline is almost identical to SHOLAY; sure the sequence of the scenes have changed, the contemporary setting of the movie has changed, and a number of characters have been amended a little, but the basis of the story remains identical. Inspector Narsimha (Mohanlal) hires two street smart goons Heero (Ajay Devgan) and Raj (Prashant Raj) to exact revenge on the man who ruined his entire life and killed his entire family; a man who rules over the town of Kaliganj with an iron fist by unleashing terror and mayhem. The man in question, is Babban Singh (Amitabh Bachchan), Mumbai’s number one underworld kingpin. How Heero and Raj put an end to Babban’s terror and how Narsimha extracts his revenge on Babban forms the crux of the movie. Along the way there is some romance as Heero falls in love with the tomboyish, loud-mouthed taxi-driver Ghungroo (Nisha Kothari) while Raj develops a soft spot for a widow Durga (Sushmita Sen) who used to be married to Narsimha’s brother.

The screenplay by Rahil Qazi is a mere cut and paste job at it’s worst with some of the sequences in the movie being moved around in a different order, but the entire structure of the movie stays exactly the same, and almost all of the important scenes remain in the movie minus any form of impact. The movie starts off on a slow note, and the sequences with Rambha Bhai (Rajpal Yadav at his absolute worst) gyrate on the viewers nerves. The flashback sequence where we find out how Heero and Raj met Narsimha is absolutely pathetic. From there on the rest of the movie basically follows the exact same plot line as SHOLAY.

The climax is the biggest culprit and comes as the rudest shock in the entire venture. The movie ends so suddenly without any impact at all. The climax of the original SHOLAY remains etched in the viewer’s memory as Thakur takes on Gabbar one-on-one.

As a director, Ram Gopal Varma has clearly lost the plot here. The characters poorly shadows of the originals in SHOLAY and the impact of the characters have been diluted for the most. Varma relies entirely on the public’s memory of the original characters in SHOLAY to help see his characters through; however this doesn’t work as he has also changed his characters to an extent, and again the effort is simply confused.

Any redeeming factors? Well, yes! Individual scenes in the movie stand out e.g. the introduction of Babban, the face-off between Babban and Narsimha in their few scenes together. However these scenes are too few and far in between to really leave a mark and there certainly weren’t enough of them. Also Babban’s reaction at the death of his brother and Tambhe are superb. The dialogues by Farhad-Sajid are good on the whole, except those delivered by Babban which are just fantastic.

Amitabh Bachchan stepping doing a take-off on Gabbar Singh raised a lot of eye brows and a lot of speculations. However, Bachchan does the unthinkable and makes Babban Singh a character of his own stepping out of the shadows of Gabbar Singh. This performance works simply because Amitabh has been very careful not to imitate or copy Amjad Khan’s legendary performance in any way, shape or format. Right from Babban’s fantastic entry Bachchan lends the character the right amount of energy, menace and surprisingly humour which makes the character work. His larger-than-life persona, electric screen-presence, powerful and original body language and amazing delivery and diction are put to full use and Bachchan clearly gives this role all that he’s got within the confines of what he’s been given and he comes out with flying colours.

The movie lights up for the better every time he’s on screen and his performance is truly an enjoyable one as he plays the evil Babban with absolute relish and passion. The dark humour, the hilarious one-liners, and his sadistic nature combined elevate not only the character but the entire movie as without a doubt Amitabh Bachchan is one of the biggest USP’s of the movie, and this is a performance that surely deserved a better film.

Mohanlal is the perfect choice for this part. His looming presence, powerful eyes and expressive delivery are in sync with the character of Narsimha. However again, Varma has made a fundamental flaw. Varma has missed the point of revenge and his vendetta takes a backseat in the second half. Unlike Sanjeev Kumar in SHOLAY, Lal hasn’t been given enough mettle to really sink his teeth into (despite been given some of the same like as Thakur in SHOLAY e.g. “loha garam hai”) and shine and this is a total disappointment.

Ajay Devgan springs a surprise. In a role which is completely against the type of characters Devgan usually plays, he enacts his part with utmost confidence and conviction and comes out flying colours. His get-up is fabulous, and his delivery spot-on. However it’s Devgan’s comic scenes which leave the viewer surprised as he comes across as natural as ever and hits all the right notes evoking laughter and relief at the right moments. Be it the scene where he pretends to be the “baba” or the infamous scene where he does the big “naatak”.

Prashant Raj makes an extremely confident debut. The boy has a striking screen presence, looks good on-screen, has a fantastic voice (though monotone at times) and delivers his lines with utmost confidence. He holds his own against a cast of veterans which is a big enough compliment and leaves his own mark. The chemistry he shares with Devgan is good too (though there’s not enough of it), though not a patch on Jai and Veeru.

Sushmita Sen is restrained, and the she delivers a completely natural performance which is perfect for the part she is playing. There is a lack of chemistry between her and Prashant who simply looks too young to be opposite Sushmita, but thankfully their relationship is not the run-of-mill stuff either.

Nisha Kothari does well in her initial sequences, though after a point her performance starts to gyrate as it comes across as artificial and too forced. Her delivery is poor, and though she tries her absolute hardest here, her biggest fault is that she tries too hard. To give her credit, she does look cute as a button and is consistent throughout. There is a lack of chemistry between her and Ajay which doesn’t help proceedings either.

Sushant Singh doesn’t have much to do here and fails to leave much of a mark. Rajpal Yadav gives his most irritating performance to date. Virendra Saxena is excellent. His scenes are fantastic. Gaurav Kapoor is good. Ravindra Kale is okay. Sanjay Navrekar doesn’t have much to do. Chakravarthy and Suchitra Krishnamurthi play their small parts well. Sachin fails to leave a mark in his small role.

The music in the movie is plain below average. The ‘Ruk Jaa’ track is catchy, but nothing great. The ‘Holi’ song has been well captured but the tune is a total letdown. The sole redeeming factor musically is the ‘Mehbooba’ track. The entire track has been superbly canned; the choreography by Ganesh Hedge is stunning and Urmila Mantondkar looks absolutely gorgeous here. Abhishek Bachchan is alright in a small part; though not a patch on Jalal Agha who did a far better job as Abhishek’s “cool” persona just doesn’t work here.

Amar Mohile’s background score is effective on the whole, though one wishes it wasn’t so jarring at times. Also Varma’s penchant for repeating the same background score he used in SARKAR seems shoddy.

Technically, the movie is surprisingly average for a RGV film. Amit Roy’s camerawork is good, though it’s the usual stuff he does for Varma and it’s becoming a bit overdone. Pradyuman Kumar’s action is completely uninspired. Varma’s aim was to capture the “feel” of those action films from the 80’s and he manages to do that but for the worst. The action is devoid of any excitement, and all the gun fights are a bore to watch. The worst culprits are Amit Parmar and Nitin Gupta who make an absolute mess out of the editing. It looks tacky.

In a nutshell, RAM GOPAL VARMA KI AAG is a colossal disappointment! Ardent fans of Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal or Ajay Devgan should catch this once, but on DVD only. With this movie, it’s evident that Ramu’s indulgence has finally got the better off him and it’s high time the man sat down and had a long (very long) hard think: the “factory” needs to go on “strike”!



4/10

Ram Gopal Varma ki.. Aargh!

Raja Sen | August 31, 2007 14:12 IST









It's kinda fitting that Gabbar is now called Babban.

Because Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, ladies and gentlemen, as its title suggests, is a B-movie. It's like one of those TLV Prasad films of the 1990s that revels in its mediocrity, the kind of film that wouldn't normally get a theatrical release in Mumbai except for the stray morning show in a ramshackle single screen theatre.

Except that this time it's a Ram Gopal Varma movie, a mega-hyped vehicle of gimmick and bluster, and thanks to the casting decision of Amitabh Bachchan [Images] as the film's villain, occasionally elevated to, well, a Big-B-movie.

A B-movie, of course, can still be a work of art. As a filmmaker, you can choose to embrace the unreal, overdone style of (seemingly) slipshod filmmaking for its very lack of boundaries and aesthetics rather than against, directing inside the tacky box and painting everything super-bad with a delicious layer of postmodern irony -- in short, something so bad it's good.

This is how I chose to watch the new film, deciding that it's about the glory of unashamed hamming and the joy of the larger-than-life. I sat back, winced in the uber-badness of it all, and managed to actually survive through the first half. I can't say I liked it -- I doubt anybody can, really -- but it left me with some hopes of exciting action setpieces or interesting confrontation moments.

Post-interval, I failed. I really, really wanted to like Aag, to enjoy it for its sheer, (hopefully) contrived badness, but this was a dismal battle. This film is horrid beyond belief. Or redemption.

It's not that Ramu doesn't try. Varma's always been among the most excellent framers of a shot in the business, and here he goes funky and classic at the same time. Making cinematographer Amit Roy constantly tilt his lens at our actors, going from Sushmita Sen's [Images] dupatta to Mohanlal's beard in one fell, overemotional swoop aided by great angles and a constant movement. Even Ramu's ever-intriguing camera has never seemed this dynamic, often idiosyncratic here as he whimsically follows the trajectory of an apple here, a corpse there.

It's just that he doesn't really have anything to shoot. A lazily written half-baked script is overcompensated by the one man most responsible for single-handedly crippling a large part of RGV's oeuvre, Amar Mohile. The background-score man is in characteristically painful form, hitting constant ear-splitting melodrama as a bunch of non-actors are given a heavy load, while those sharing a half-dozen National Awards between themselves (Mohanlal 4, Ajay Devgan [Images] 2) are trapped by caricatures. Which aren't even remotely inventive.

And then there's Amitabh Bachchan. His Babban Singh (it's really hard not to giggle at all of the character names) is a uniquely twisted individual, with onebrown-onegreen eyes like an erstwhile Bausch & Lomb model, limping menacingly in combat boots and a military jacket. He's initially engaging, turning the cliche around to paraphrase immortal lines with brevity, and putting himself on the line during a compelling game of Russian roulette. Bachchan gamely gets into the character, slithering and hissing as he readies to strike fear in the hearts of faraway crying kids and policeman's wives.

While Amitabh does indeed provide commendable steam to the sinking ship, Babban is so over-written it hurts. He does superbly with a one-liner and a piece of fruit, but the frantic anxiety to make him Bollywood's greatest ever villain is all too visible as the character is loaded with bizarre lines about America and Al Qaeda [Images]. And let's not forget the Osama nod, with Babban suddenly cloaked in black a la Skeletor. Add to this a snaky tongue, a laugh that can't choose between ominous shudders and raspy hisses, and a Castor/Pollux complex that obviously stems more from Face/Off than Greek mythology.

Amitabh conjures up some great moments, but he was a better villain in Aks [Images].

Mohanlal is the film's protagonist, Narsimha, an improbably overweight encounter cop with a justifiable vendetta against Babban. He's a fine, restrained actor but despite a Hindi accent to rival Inspector Cousteau, is made to speak entirely in farcical, formulaic tripe. The best of performers would struggle, and this man -- certainly among the finest Indian living actors -- seems to give up the chase for greatness halfway through. I would, however, like to know how to throw a steak knife without using your fingers.

The rest of the characters, well, the lesser said the better. Surprisingly, newbie Prashant Raj [Images] emerges as the most tolerable of the bunch, but then again his role simply requires him to look, well, tall. Sen dresses in black and pretends to be stoic but constantly cries, looking like she's auditioning for Vaastu Shastra [Images] 2. Rajpal Yadav pipes up with a comic act limited to squeakily plugging Varma's next release. Sushant Singh plays a valiant Tambhe. Abhishek Bachchan [Images] chubbily comes on in a one-song cameo, with Urmila Matondkar [Images], the latter forcing Babban to utter the most gimmicky line ever.

Special criticism must be reserved for Devgan and Nisha Kothari [Images], who play Heero and Ghungroo. In one of current cinema's worst leading pairs, Ajay unfathomably plumbs new depths of idiocy with this follow-up to Cash. Kothari can't act -- or look remotely good -- but has acres of script-space, and has to explore everything from comic timing to hysterical weeping, which isn't a smart script choice. As Devgan pulls a pistol to his head to make suicide threats, we sorely wish he'd pull the trigger.

Ram Gopal Varma might have started out -- I see no better explanation -- to make a so-bad-it's-good kinda B-movie, but tragically hurtled past the stop-signs and ended up with, quite simply, a so-so-bad film. It's the director's most depressingly disappointing work.

Ramu is a maverick, a director usually given to laughing at critics and scathing reviews, which is as it should be. The scary thing is that he might just truly believe Aag is a good movie. I pray not.

Rediff Rating:


1/5

I just watched AAG, and I don't know what to say.

As a remake, it's probably the biggest embarrassment in the history of cinema.
As a film in its own right, it's probably amongst the 10 crappiest ever.

It's out of its depth and is truly Ram Gopal Verma Ki SHALLOW

Saving grace? The Mehbooba number which is picturized and presented very well.

Biggest irritants:
1. Everything is so rushed -- even then the length seems intolerably long.
2. Amitabh's pure white teeth don't gel with his getup -- yes, he's hammed to glory and is more of a caricature.

Guys, this is not a Sholay remake or even a copy -- It's actually a parody.

No, it's not a metro-take on the great movie, it's a "chawl" version -- there's simply no sense of scope and scape.

on AVS there was one guy who described Aag as too painful to watch with a disgusted look on his face. i pretty much expected it was going to be downer. not going to bother seeing this.

Even people who are wanting to see the movie are being turned away My brother was telling me he tried to go and watch it at the Bradford Cineworld but was turned away as the late showing had been cancelled because they had only got a single print of the movie

Ali

I typically value the reviews at fullhyd.com

what is it with the EXTREME ratings? it can't possibly be that bad, could it? or is there some sort of bias against this film to begin with?

DragunR2--haha--I wouldn't be too surprised--anyway, that IS JD Chakravarthy

Aag is maha thandee