Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

My brother and I were on our way to watch a movie, some movie, any movie that was playing on a lazy Friday afternoon. Rush Hour 3 was playing near by. When we landed there, my brother realised Ram Gopal Varma’s Sholay was releasing today worldwide. He asked why not go for it. So i thought sure, why not? After all its Ram Gopal Varma. Bought tickets and walked into the theatre.

The title of the movie
“RAM GOPAL VARMA ki AAG” was all it took to make me laugh. Varma ki AAG. Acidity hain kia be?

Before i begin this review, audience, pretend im a known film maker, teacher to Subhash Ghai, ace-cameraman (mentor of Santosh Sivan), producer of several foriegn films that looted at the Cannes, work buddy of Yash Chopra, and have Maniratnam and Shekar Kapoor on speed dial.

The movie begins with Heero (Ajay Devgan) and Raj (Prashanth Raj) doing what underground gangsters normally seem to do. Load boxes into van, play football, unload boxes, get shitfaced drinking expensive liquor, load somemore merchandise into vans and collect their paychecks from HR (some bearded Hagar called Shambu). So these two boys while they’re doing their thing, get picked up by the police for questioning. Enter Narsimha (Mohan Lal, shrill whistlesss, hoots, jordhar claps) in the dingy room where Heero and Raj are questioned about their work with Shambu. They are told that he works for Babban who the police have been looking for 5 years now. These two good citizens of the nation willingly agree to co-operate with the police to help nab Shambu in the guise of making a deal. Some bad make-up, wigs, two minutes later, the encounter between the dealers go wrong and firing. Bang bang dichkao, didditdiddit (soft sounding AK-47) they capture Shambu and Narsimha’s cops come and take him away along with handcuffing the two bumbling idiots who agreed to help the police.

Cut to scene in jail, funny scene i don’t remember much of, involving Rajpal Yadav

Cut to 1 year later they come out and they’re whisked away back to Narsimha who has lost his…

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I’m sorry i’ dont want to spoil the fun for you guys who want to watch the movie but ill just tell you what i thought was good/bad about the movie.

Ghungroo- (Basanti) Nisha Kothari, while tries hard to fit into Basanti’s clothes, it isn’t enough. Her dialogue delivery-tapori mannerisms-behaviour seemed pretty much like she’d rehearsed an hour before the shoot, read her lines minutes before the camera rolled, but dressed up almost 6 months ago. She looks less of a woman and more of a teenager. What was particularly interesting is the cameraman’s/director of photography’s viewpoint or angle in this case. After her initial intro, the cameraman invites you for a front row treat of Ghungroo’s behind while she’s putting down Heero’s advances. This while unique an angle isn’t a treat at all, since there is no behind at all. Much sorry to say, but this isn’t Shakira or Beyonce we’re talking about here. So there’s nothing here really.

Gangu Maa- (Ghungroo’s mommy), loved this character played by Rasika Joshi. Though small a role, she’s done much justice when Raj comes asking for her hand in marriage to Heero. Also she puts up quite a stunt while Heero is trying to kill himself in drunken stupor, much like Dharmendra trying to jump from the water tank while tryin to convince Basanti’s mausi to marry her off to him. Gangu Maa ki Jai!

Heero- (Veeru) Ajay Devgan, class act, nothing much to write about. Not his memorable role.
Raj- (Jai) Prashanth Raj, newbie, but another class act, no flaws but a shortlived role, not memorable.
Durga Devi - Sushmita Sen, the widow of the movie. Nicely portrayed. But i felt she was a little too fashionable for the character. Maybe Manish Malhotra played a role in her wardrobe?
Thambe- Sushant Singh, plays a sidekick to our main goon, Babban. Ok. Fewer expressions.
Rhamba Bhai- Rajpal Yadav, gives us a few laughs in his usual style. Nice.

Mr. Narsimha- (Thakur) Mohan Lal, class act only. But it is in the accent department he makes the Malayalees’ swell with pride, belch in style and talk a mile about how one can butcher the hindi language. Mohan Lal who did quite well in ‘The Company’ simply falls in standard with his hindi diction in this one. I could hear ladies in the back row chuckling while he delivered lines with more than 8-9 words in C-section. The words simply wouldn’t roll off from his mouth, it took him quite an effort of pulling that one syllable of that word, eventually slipping out into something else totally. Seriously, Narsimha could’ve done with a few extra coaching classes.

Babban- (Gabbar) Amitabh Bachhan, I personally think this is where Varma has invested his mind, soul, mouth and money developing this character. For he has given Babban so much of weightage that everyone else in the movie is dwarfed by the effects, movement choreography, camera time and punch lines he has got. Everything about Babban is to be loved. He is shown as the deville divine with muted lighting, peeling mossy walls, rugged floor and in dusty off-beat environments. His entry into the movie with him slouched on the couch and arms filling up the fram and his eyes on the extreme right is something new. There are certain scenes which are firsts in Indian cinema i think, maybe im wrong. A very close-up (macro) shot of Babban’ eyes from the side when he’s angry. Also a shot where Babban is tossing up an apple and the camera is also hanging and bobbing up and down along with the apple. Fantastic work there. Like i told you if you’re going to watch the movie, you’ll come out thinking it should’ve been called Babban-The AAG because it is all about it.

Overall the movie can be a easy timepass. Not too boring for the visuals and the occasional streaks of cinemascopic brilliance. The story will not hold you to the seat, but the women will. Urmila comes in as an item girl and she does it fantastically

(pulls the tongue back in)

Overall i give AAG 2/5. Ram Gopal Varma ki can go. But it could stay too, because it seemed like this was more of a artist’s venture into creating something that is/was dear to him. Less of a commercial venture. But if this movie’s a hit, i’ll pay each one who reads this blog Rs.25. But if this piece of art tanks in the theatres in the next 13 days i’ll need Urmila’s autograph and a photograph with the Big B himself. Deal Varma?