Aggi Telugu Movie
Ram Gopal Varma has oodles of spunk. He has done what nobody in the Hindi film industry dared to do till now. He has taken a shot at remaking Sholay.
Just before the release of the movie the expectations were quite high and the atmosphere was abuzz with the questions: Is Ram Gopal Varma's Aag a worthy remake of Sholay? Will the metamorphoses of Babban-to-Gabbar, Narasimha-Thakur, Heero-Veeru, Raj-Jay, Ghungroo-Basanti, Devi-Radha, Rambha Bhai-Soorma Bhopali, Tambhe-Samba, Laila-Dhanno be total? The answer to both the questions is a resounding NO. Sholay is a magnum opus of Hindi cinema. RGV's Aag is almost like a run of the RVG mill kind of a movie if not for the obvious comparison to the magnum opus: Sholay.
But that's not the verdict on the movie. RVG's Aag will go down in the history of Hindi cinema as an intrepid attempt to remake Sholay. One really has to have guts to remake a movie that's probably the best Hindi movie ever made. Thus, in making a remake, the standards were set so high that even in failing the movie succeeds. Ram Gopal Varma has done it, and his name gets etched indelibly in the history of Hindi cinema.
The link to the great hit of the past makes RVG's Aag a lucrative prospect, irrespective of the fact that only two actors could measure up to the original characters in terms of performance. Amitabh as Babban (Gabbar) and Mohanlal as Narasimha (Thakur) have gone the whole hog to stand up to the demands of the intensity and acting excellence of the historic roles. Sushmita Sen (Devi) comes close to her original role enacted by Jaya (Radha). Other than that the rest of the cast were mere caricatures in comparison to the original cast. Not even the auto that Ghungroo (Nisha Kothari) drives sizes up to Basanti's Dhanno.
Every character in Sholay breathed life. In RVG's Aag actors try hard to mimic the original characters in their own ways. But RVG himself obscures the process with bad lighting and chaotic direction. A perpetual dark background did not help the cause of the movie.
However, Amitabh as Babban gives an award winning performance. Mohanlal vividly reminds of Sanjeev Kumar. And RVG's Aag brings back the faded memory of Sholay to the fore.
