~*~*~*~*~*~* Fire with less flames ~*~*~*~*~*~*. Review on Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag

Any experienced person engaged in agriculture will know the difficulties in replanting a tree or plant. If the tree is big, that much difficult is the replanting. In AAG, Ram Gopal Varma try to replant such a huge tree called Sholay with partial success. However, from a remake of Sholay, we audience expect nothing less than perfection, nothing short of greatness. We need the same magic as Sholay did.

We enter the cinema hall with huge expectation. 3 leading actors of India, 2 best actor awards for all three. RGV, who has made Rangeela and Companyas director. All is set to place our expectation quite high. The opening shots on Mohanlal… we are impressed…suddenly, Ram Gopal Varma decided to pour some water to the fire with an unwanted, badly shot & badly performed episode and you pinch your skin to believe what you are seeing. Do we have to expect something great from this film? We concluded that we don't need to. However, things got improved once the proceedings took its pace. The director had to work for an hour or so, just to recover his audience from the shock treatment he has given. Thankfully, the film come to the track and the last 1 and half hours was pretty good. In some places the film overtakes the old version, but otherwise it just try to match to the original. The ending however was not so efficient or brilliant.

The story moves around in the same line as Sholay, except few changes here and there. Some of the changes.

1. Instead of the hand, it is the fingers of Inspector (Narasimha, played by Mohall) are chopped (Thereby reducing the effect of the situation and character).

   
   




2. Babban compares his acts with America & Al-Qu-aida and give observations on American invasion.

   
   




3. The Harmonica in Sholay is kept by Amitab and it is only partially used.

   
   




4. The coin tossing task is assigned to Ajay Devgan, but he don't know how to use it and use it only once.

   
   




5. Instead of horses, motor bikes used in the film.

   
   




6. Gabbar's character get more sympathy this time around and believe me, Babban is all the way explain why there is no injustice in killing common people.

   
   




7. Inspector get more footage but the character was sadly let down.

   
   

There are a lot of small changes like this. Do I have to list all?

Amitab Bachchan as Babbar is superb! One can watch the film only to see the old veteran's thundering performance, one of his career best , matching to his performance in Black. Full marks to him. Nothing to add or deduct. Simply perfect.

Mohanlal as Inspector Narasimha has delivered fine moments of acting in bollywood history. However, this has been off-settled by the silly scenes added in the film in the beginning. The great actor delivered his exceptional acting but failed to make a great impact like the one he made in Company. The dubbing in his own voice was a major pain where few shots of his bulky body could have been avoided.

Ajay Devgan, was simply pitted against 2 big shots, however, he still made his space and come out safely. Good work, but not great.

Prashant as Raj looks cool, but he was expected to do a role which was immortalised by Amitab and I feel really sorry for him. He did an average performance.

Sushant Singh as the right hand of Babban didn't have much to act, but to fight it out.

Sushmita maintained the same pace of Jaya Bachchan and good. Nisha Kothari as Ghungroo justified her selection with a fine performance. She is a treat to watch. Suchithra Krishnamurthy is good in the small role, where she always resembles me Vidya Balan or the other way around. All others have done a good job. Overall performance is excellent.

Music of the film is good and the choreography is fine. There are 2 hot numbers, one by Urmila and the other one with Nisha. While Urmila's Mehbooba number was pretty dark, the other was choreographed in white and skin. Background music is simply top class.

Cinematography is exceptionally good and full marks. There are more than many cinematic moments which can equal to any time great moments. The sets are adequate. Editing I will not comment.

The real problem for RGV however was in the adaptation. The scripting is not done well, nor the old characters and their emotions are absorbed. Many of the factors worked for Shlay to make the ordinary film to a great film not taken seriously by the writers or directors. The intensity and bondness of friendship, the value of sacrifice, beauty of courage…many of them are mercilessly removed without purpose or reason. The writers fail to recognize the loop holes in the old plot and their unknown efforts only manifested the problem. Where the inspector is young, his sister is young. When the inspector is quite old, his sister remains still young. Not to asks the secret of evergreen Ghungroo. In one seen the Inspector as shown as helpless, where in other, he hold coffee pot with his hands and drink the coffee easily, and apply a big knife efficiently. The real hero of the film was the Inspector where the character was let down miserably.

Now, some final notes:

1. To the producers/distributors: If you can just chop out the initial 10 minutes, exactly the scenes till the titles, it will salvage the film to a great extend.

2. To the Director: Short and sweet is some times good. I am talking about the length of scenes for Mohanlal. Always get a good script writer to make your fine efforts to hit with its impact. A missile is only useful if it hits the exact target, where script writer is the guiding system of the film missile. Also take some lessons on agriculture from Priyadarsan.

3. To the readers: If you are expecting the film to match upto Sholay, forget it, buy a DVD of Sholay instead. It is not. However, the film is watchable for excellent performance by 3 leading actors & superb cinematography. All scenes between Mohanlal and Amitab Bachchan are rich and emotions spill around. Just watch the finger cutting scene with the thrilling background music to feel the effect…it chills…brutally chills. The last few scenes by Ajay Devgan are also different. May be you will feel better if you enter the hall after 10 minutes or so.

Overall, this fire is without much flame, but there is heat inside. Enter at your own risk. You are warned!