Did Ramu watch Sholay 27 times? If that’s the case, then there should be a law to ban such reckless activity, for it gives rise to a dangerous itch, the horrible results of which are there for us all to see and bear. When RGV announced the pompous remake of Sholay with great enthusiasm, I knew it was going to be one of the last nails in his filmmaking coffin. My fears turned out to be true, and so, even with clear disaster warnings written in bold all over, I took a chance with AAG, braved Ramu’s towering inferno for close to 3 hours and came out aghast with a lot of roasted body parts. I shall never forgive FE, Orknob and Alok for goading me into this.
The crap that I have posted above in the name of VR is a consequence of the shocks that I endured. Now that my head has cleared a little, I am at least in a position to actually sit down and write an appropriate epitaph.
My simple observations and miscellaneous conclusions (By the way, the accompanying photo is that of an irritated Dhanno coming out of the theatre)
The cinematographer was earlier working with The Royal Japanese Earthquake Filming Society….his unique style of wildly swaying, swinging, spinning, screwing camera angles gave away this valuable clue. It’s another thing that the poor viewers nearly vomited with vertigo and motion sickness. The assistant cinematographer had probably co-invented the stump vision camera. So all shots were taken from 2 ft. height to enable the viewer to have a clear view of the balls’ movement. .
I was enlightened by the fact that after the ‘mole’, the next most useful way of hiding your identity is by wearing a brown mustache. A pair of goggles can compliment the mooch nicely. If used intelligently, the combination of a mole, a mustache and a pair of goggles can hide the differences between a man, a dog, a lion, a police inspector and even an elephant.
Ajay Devgan (Heero) cant even steal an ogle properly. Each time he stared at Ghungroo’s ghung…I mean breast pockets, he was caught red handed. He nearly drilled his eyes into Ghungroo's anatomy. Ogling, like whistling, is an art, and like all other fine arts, needs perfection. Heero is lousy and miserable in the movie with his red hair and should have committed suicide when Ghungroo’s mom didn’t consent for their marriage. Had Veeru known that he would be emulated thus, he too would have given up his claim on Basanti, gulped down a few more mouthfuls of whiskey and jumped off the tank in Sholay.
Prashant (Raj) thankfully dies in the last scene. He didn't have much to do other that look like a cool dude (what's a dude?).
Babban reminded me of Waterworld somehow. His makeover was hideous. His hamming was pathetic. His gang had a whole bunch of shrunken old men chiseling away old 12 bore guns which led me to suspect that Jai (from Sholay) probably survived, hoodwinked all, fled to Mumbai, became Babban with the help of Gabbar’s dropouts and kicked as*. Also, Babban as a patient appears pretty difficult to treat and seems to be a physician’s nightmare. Likely to be suffering from tuberculosis, barber’s itch, foot drop, limp, groin eczema, sore eyes, psychosis, mange, lice, scabies, pinworm, impotence, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, dislocated hip joint, asthma, piles, tics…..where is the doctor?
The Natural Endowment Policy - If you are a nymphet, naturally endowed, love fig leaves, are thrifty with clothes, can jump, heave and are willing to get wet either at the beach or under the shower, you can become Ramu’s heroine and end up with loads and loads of crappy dialogues. He won’t pay any attention to your horrible, slimy, incoherent, staccato jerks which you may try to pass off as acting. Nisha Kothari was pathetic. Had Basanti and Dhanno seen this, both would have turned up at a lunatic asylum. Sush as Durga Devi gave me the impression of the latest version of ‘Widow’s Vista’. Attractively packaged, but terribly faulted. And literally dying to ‘upgrade’ at the first opportunity! When confronted with Raj's secret love for her, Durga Devi nearly jumped with glee, chanted har har har har har quietly and went about spinning a day dream.
It was hazardous for Amitabh to experiment with an apple, that too at this age. He should have read about Newton’s laws of motion. It was equally hazardous for him to fiddle with ants, bees, flies and kill hundreds of them without any apparent reason. Flickered his tongue like a snake sometimes. Ugh! But I think it is not really Ramu's fault and shouldn’t be blamed for the hideous misdirection. He was busy directing 12 other movies at the same time. One hits next week.
Everyone went completely over the top. It was like a mad rush for the gold medal in hamming. The film is horrid, ghastly and revolting beyond belief. All the guns seemed to have an excess of gunpowder, made a terrible racket when fired, and often missed the target. Background score is jarring, deafening and revolting beyond description. Bizarre and unnecessary references to CIA and Al Qaida appear to inserted to give this movie an international texture. Ramu’s creativity seems to have sunk to the pits really. Is this the same one who made Satya???
Tambi showed promise. If he grows a real moustache, sticks to Ramu loyally and doesn’t eye Ramu’s girls, he may land up with a plump role in the near future. Rajpal Yadav probably choked on icecream and ruined his voice. Chekravarty's career seems to have come to an end with Satya. Though only one glimpse of him was heart warming. And I am still to comprehend how a finger less Narsimha hurled that hunting knife at Babban's back. Moreover, he failed to convince as a police inspector, no matter how hard he tried. Ramu should have made him a lawyer or something. Would have suited him better.
There are countless other inconsistencies, to document which I shall need to write two more reviews. Naah, don’t really have the stomach for that.
Puke….faaarrr*t……burrrrp…….
Hazam nahi hua….And thank you for tolerating the VR.
