Review: RGV Ki Aag is RGV ka daag

DARK SPOT: It's a pity Varma's made Sholay bhature out of such a much-loved classic.

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• In Pics: RGV Ki Aag is hot at the BO

• Now, get your cell phones ringing in RGV Ki Aag songs

• I am too thick skinned to care for criticism: RGV

Top Headlines

Top Videos

Most Popular

• Gujarat dry status an ideological hangover? 

• India dry, Pawar says well-stocked for 13 months | Drought diary 

• Manmohan, Gilani fix up meeting without a date 

• India puts it in writing: Pak planned 26/11 

• Burger King apologises to Hindus for offensive ad 

• SC takes up plea against gay sex, issues notice 

• Suspected Dawood aide acquitted in fake currency case 

• Another 'lover' arrested at Sania Mirza's house 

• Mumbai, Pune and Delhi face 30-40 pc water shortage 

• Politicos get into the ABC of Varun's Z-plus security 

• MP drought-hit 

• Sariska tigers siblings, incest dangerous: Experts 

• 2016 Games contenders go all out to woo voters 

• Watch: Zardari admits to nurturing terrorists 

• SC takes up plea against gay sex, issues notice 

• CJ: Delhi-based builders make off with money 

• Pune reels under 40 per cent water cuts 

• RTI against college lands DCE student in trouble 

• Sports officer attacked for fighting corruption 

• Watch: Ferreira talks about sports and Union Budget 

• Forbes India: 20 stocks you must own 

• Dry state Gujarat reels under hooch tragedy 

• Burger King apologises to Hindus for offensive ad 

• India puts it in writing: Pak planned 26/11 

• Army honours Mohanlal with Lieutenant Colonel post 

• Another 'lover' arrested at Sania Mirza's house 

• MP drought-hit 

• Sariska tigers siblings, incest dangerous: Experts 

• Mamata dismisses corporate structure for railways 

• Mysore: PFI activists clash with police, lathicharged 

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen

Direction: Ramgopal Varma

Writing out a review for Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag amounts to dignifying this third-rate film with a studied observation on its plot, its characters and its treatment. And believe me, that's more thought and effort than the film's director has put into it.

I can't come up with appropriate enough words to describe the horror I felt sitting in that cinema watching Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag, the director's half-hearted attempt to pay tribute to that classic Bollywood western, Sholay.

The biggest problem with Varma's remake is that he doesn't even try to make a credible film. It's evident in every single frame of this movie that Varma's heart is just not in it.

What you see on screen is a bad joke at best, a gimmick on the part of the filmmaker, and it pains you to see what little regard he actually shows for a film he claims he's been a fan of all his life.

In my job as a film critic I've seen several bad films over the years, but I can't remember one that's been as much of a torture to sit through as this one. Consider yourself very brave if you're able to survive the entire film, because it tests your patience like few films have before.

Varma may borrow his plot and characters from the original film, but his version is trite and hollow and doesn't have any of the spirit and energy of Sholay.

Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag is actually a mockery of that timeless gem because it turns out to be everything that the original film was not - way-over-the-top, too-long-too-boring, and entirely mindless.

Much-loved moments from Sholay are parodied by Varma and for that you want to wring his neck. One of the most memorable scenes in Sholay in which Dharmendra as Veeru climbs up the watertank and threatens to jump down to his death is turned around in this film with Ajay Devgan playing Hero, pulling a pistol to his head threatening to shoot himself. How you wish he'd pulled the trigger and spared us all the agony.

Not only does Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag fail as a remake of Sholay, it's a pretty bad effort even as a stand-alone film.

The eardrum-damaging background score sounds more like someone clanging vessels in the kitchen, and the camerawork alternates between dramatic and head-spinning.

Partners in this terrible crime of bringing this ridiculous film to screen are the film's mostly dead-as-wood actors.