Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag...(modern day Sholay)

...I don't watch Bollywood films, but thought i'd give this a go at the cinema...and boy did I regret, it was just pathetic. Amitabh, pls retire!!

yeah the reviews were pretty bad....i was disappointed just by listening to the songs.

There was a sequence where one of the bloke got shot at from barely 5 meters, yet he managed to dodge the bullet

saw it and what an insult to the original sholay, must be one of the worst films ever made.

The name of the movie just threw me off & the trailer of the movie convinced me not to watch the movie...ever!

the new heroine was hot and urmilla too in one song looked nice,, but the movie is terrible.... the best movie I think RGB has made were Company...

I read a qoute by Michael Caine recently where he said it's never a good idea to remake old classics that were very successful.

He went on to say if filmmakers were going to remake an old flick then choose one which was not successful or critically acclaimed and try and do a better job.

Just from the trailers it seems as though Amitabh is overacting bigtime, looks silly, at one point it looks like he's trying to impersonate a lion?

RGV had the nerve to originally call it Sholay, but Mr Sippy had other ideas...

I saw another trailer last night, seemed as though Amitabh is reduced to doing Mutteley the dog(from wacky races?)impersonations when laughing.

seems like there was an effort to resurrect Amjad Khan literally

darna mana hai is a good film!

It made the headline news of South Asia section of BBC

A Bollywood film, which was to be a tribute to Sholay (Flames) - the most iconic Hindi movie ever made - has flopped at the box office.

A week after Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag (Ram Gopal Varma's Fire) was released, distributors say they have decided to pull it from cinemas by Friday....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6981053.stm

It was always bound to be a flop, must be some sort of tax scam.

personal favorite ram gopal gangster film was Satya.

"My Sholay was jinxed from start"

-- Ram Gopal Varma speaks out on his worst film ever!

Were do you think you went wrong with Aag?

I did go wrong. The one person I must have made supremely happy is Ramesh Sippy. I'm very happy to make him happy because he made my life. I saw Sippy's Sholay again last night. It's fantastic. I must've been nuts to attempt it. All my impressions of Sholay over the years went into Aag. Now I ask myself, if someone else had made Aag and I as a fan of Sholay went to see Aag, how would I react? I'd probably hate Aag as much as people have hated it. The original is too deeply embedded in the public's psyche.



Aag is your career's most vilified and ridiculed film.

I'd think so. The baggage of expectations was too high. The brickbats were a part of what people see as this upstart trying to tamper with a classic. The backlash isn't personal. Sometimes the criticism against some film begins and rises in a wave, all in one voice. I don't think people sat down and conspired to trash the film.



What according to you is the reason for the backlash?

They hate my guts for having the audacity to attempt to remake Sholay. But I'm used to be hated for what I do. Only this time the volume of protests is higher.



What about the SMS that said you should learn filmmaking from your former assistants Madhur Bhandarkar and Shimit Amin?

We all have an opinion on everything under the sun. If somebody feels I should learn filmmaking they're right in their own way. When Kisna failed they said Subhash Ghai should enroll in his own film institute. Ridiculing people is a form of entertainment.



Maybe the volume of work goes against you.

I don't agree with that. I don't do anything but make films. And I can't take a break from what I do just because people want me to make less films.



But people feel Aag was a careless work?

That's again a viewpoint. My intention was re-do the original without tampering with the spirit of Sholay. Now take Mohanlal. I had him with a beard all through because my logic was, how can a man without fingers shave? Then people say Mohanlal looks like a bear with the beard! Now what do I do?

As for Mr Bachchan as Babban, I wanted it to be low profile. People found him inert and unenergetic. Let me clear this. Every actor has done exactly what he or she was told to. If Mr Bachchan's performance was found to be inconsistent it's because through his character I tried to pay a homage to all the villains I know from Mad Max to Gabbar Singh to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence Of The Lambs to Jack Nicholson in Batman.



So you take full blame?

Yes. I take blame for every actor, camereman, dialogue writer, etc. They did what I asked them to. I kept on insisting Aag was a formula film. I never said I was making a classic. But I guess no one was listening. Right from the word go my Sholay was jinxed.



--Courtesy: Santa Banta

I haven't seen the movie but still like commenting
There are Naiees (barbers) who can shave. But do the geniuses (public and directors) really think about these details. There are bigger things to worry about if you think can this person shave or not. how about the exuberent fighting and people flying around or car chases etc. No one complained before then why would they care about facial hair. They like it so don't change it by thinking too much as you have seen what happened to good Indian Art movies. You are talking about cahnging the whole Bollywood mainstream movie circle here.

Was this a 3 day movie? just try and capture Chota Shakeel of Mumbai. Well I can't find the clip of Kramer trying to "capture" the essence of ocean but here he tries with underwear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iViyKfcI1IQ

here is the film.

http://www.zshare.net/video/3483091c370556/
Part 2
http://www.zshare.net/video/34825905070b63/
Part 3
http://www.zshare.net/video/3482608a6d929e/
Part 4
http://www.zshare.net/video/3482606b5b4cda/
Part 5
http://www.zshare.net/video/34826016e50be1/

is Dhuno still in the movie? other than Amjad Khan's few lines and couple of songs the next thing would be "Chal Dhuno"

well i heard that film is not good