Is Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag the worst Hindi film ever made? Fuck no! Is it even close? Not really.

 

The critical bashing this film has taken in its all too brief lifespan surpasses the worst excesses of Sonu spanking.

I found AAG as a reimagining of Sholay quite entertaining. It's leagues ahead of a recent leaden, turdlike, fauxcool (and, haha, fuckall) film featuring Shahrukh Khan and a vast assortment of trannys (Not Chak De India)

It's like RGV got sick of all the sholay jokes going around and made the sholay joke to end 'em all. Maybe a remake of Sholay was an odd vehicle for RGV to trundle out his vast array of blink and you'll miss em quips and running gags. But of these there are several and your enjoyment of the film hinges on your ability to get them. (Sort of like Border growing a lot less tiresome when you found the vast quantities of Surd jokes, coiled tapeworm like, within it.)

Some of the humour is pretty upfront. Mohanlal's hindi enunciation for instance. Sample this awesomeass dialogue from Mohanlal after he is compelled to arrest our heroes in spite of them helping him bust a famous drug/weapons operation:

"Main poori koshish karoonga ki tum logon ko kam se kam

L
O
N
G

P
A
U
S
E

during which you, the audience, are filling the blanks with 'bravery award mile'; '5 lakh inaam mile';  to the spectacular heights of "jail mein daaru nakki. Khaane peene ke liye chicken, mutton nakki aur dekhne ke liye TV nakki. Mahine mein ek baar ladki bhi nakkeee!"

Instead he finishes anti-climatically with 'saza mile!' Oh, Mohanlal, you card! That's just one small instance of the wicked humour that suffuses this delightful film.

 

 

 

Then consider if you will the original where Gabbar was surrounded by a bunch of extraordinarily villainous types. The sort who, to cadge a joke from ravenus, would respond to the 'ghar mein ma behn nahin hai kya?' line with 'unki izzat tho maine saalon pehley loot li.'

Then there's Amitabh's gang, an odd, unlikely bunch united only by their remarkable patience with the ugly old fart. They seem like volunteers from the Indian Society for the Aged, good-natured enough to want to spend time with the elderly but too stupid to remember when to leave or show themselves out. As a result, whenever Bachchan finds his realm getting crowded he takes drastic population control measures.

 

 

 

Bachchan's gang could also be seen as a light-hearted take on the ponderous Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello. Except they are four archetypes in search of a joke:

 

-- an aged commie student from JNU:

 

-- a truck driver.

 

-- a retired peon.

 

-- and most remarkably, a man with eyebrows that in most scenes precede him by a full THREE seconds. 

Not much happens to these guys. They look on with nervousness and consternation at the violence around them (commie boy almost loses his lunch in the scene where Bachchan blesses Mohanlal with a handshake free existence), laugh when they don't get shot, keel over and die when they do. In one of the films many 'aww' inspiring moments, the commie reverts to  a strange caninous state when he sees Nisha Kothari, dry humping her leg and licking her in a daft and affectionate manner.

Bachchan incidentally comes across as a geriatric Lennie Small, and is given to frequent bouts of rage and murder. In one of the film's more droll sequences, he keeps telling Mohanlal outrageous stories about the many times he avenged insults to his brother (Sachin, reprising the duration if not the specifics of his role in the original Sholay); the time when his bro was defeated by someone at tops and how he (amitabh) drove the top into the skull of his bro's hapless opponent, and then spun it around till blood and brain matter flew out of the fucker's ears!! And this other time when a dentist pulled the wrong tooth out of his brother's mouth. Bachchan tore all the teeth out of the dentist's mouth, and fitted them back in his (the dentist's!) vaginal cavity. Which he carved into the dentist's groin with a BLUNT KNIFE! Good times, those. The rest of the time Bachchan rambles in a pitiful manner about Osama Bin Laden, America, and his guilt at the fact that he's not Gandhi.

There's some hilarious running gags; the crippled father of the nisha kothari recalling Satya's girlfriend's demented aged parent. Aside: I can imagine Ramu's screenwriter coming up to him saying "Sir, maine heroine ke pita ke liye bada tagda sa role likha hai. Public dekhegi, to ro padegi. Aap sunenge?" To which Ramu raises his heavy lidded eyes and says, "Chutiya samjha hai kya? Kisi langde ko dal do. Vaise bhi ladki ke baap, sab ke sab langde hote hain saale. Janam se nahin, to karm se!".

 

 

 

The dark insane guy from Qile ka Rahasya bringing a WE WILL DRIVE OUR PLANES INTO YOUR HOMES, YOU INFIDEL SCUM! intensity to AK Hangal's doddering affable token Muslim character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only real criticism of this film I can offer is that it perhaps did not go far enough. After allowing Bachchan three tales of badassery, they deny Mohanlal even one. We were hoping Malluboy would come up with his own bunch of stories about his murdered family before killing amitabh. Stuff like:

 

 

 

 

 

Also it would have been a nice touch to show the eyebrows of the eyebrowed one going through their life cycle in the course of the film to indicate the passage of time - forming a cocoon and then undergoing chrysalis and flying away a few seconds after the scene when he falls dead. Ah well, one can't have everything.

In conclusion, great movie! Go watch it while it still lasts.