Story
Narsimha (Mohan Lal) is a sincere cop. Babban (Amitab Bachchan) is the most dreaded gangster who was never arrested as police fail to provide any evidence against him. Narsimha throws Babban into the jail and also causes a personal loss to Babban. Babban retaliates and takes revenge on Narsimha. The rest of the story is all about how Narsimha hires two youngsters (Ajay Devgan and Prashant Raj) and then eliminate Babban.

Actors:Mohan Lal is pretty good as the cop. Amitab Bachchan used the mannerisms of growling and whiffing for a kind of villainy look but he fades out if you compare him with legendry Amjad Khan when it comes to histrionics and characterization. Ajay Devgan is alright. Prashant Raj is good for a first timer. Nisha Kothari is partly good. Her introduction part is good. The way she sports a beedi to portray roughness is very artificial. Sushmita Sen is good. Sushant Singh plays the vital role of Amitab's sidekick. Abhishek Bachchan and Urmila Matondkar gave special appearance in an item song.

Story - screenplay - direction: Ram Gopal Varma stated that this film is his tribute to his favorite film Sholay. Instead he humiliated the great film by making Aag. We all know the story, he should have been more sensible. Screenplay of the film is inadequate. Ram Gopal Varma's mafia touch is missing in his direction. He failed to bring out the emotions. However, he scored well in the following scenes -

1. The blind man coming forward to the rescue Narsimha when everybody else is blaming him.
2. Villain realizing that his associate is dead in the climax.

Other departments: Music of the film is average. The Mehabooba song offers some variety. The music director adapted the signature tune of Mehabooba to score background music for action sequences. Cinematography is pretty good. The uniform color grading done to the movie is good. Dialogues are alright.

Analysis: Remaking Sholay has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantage is that the film will get noticed and people would talk about it. The disadvantage is that the film will be compared with the original. Aag succeeds in the first aspect of creating buzz and fails in the second aspect of comparison. The emotion, feel and buoyancy of Sholay is surely missing in Aag. The Gabbar character in Sholay is terrorizing as well as entertaining. By using a flashback to justify Babban's cruelty towards Narsimha, Ram Gopal Varma created lot of sympathy to Gabban character in Aag. And when audiences sympathies with the villain, the whole heroism and the cause of heroes don't get elevated. On a whole, Aag disappoints with or without comparing with Sholay!

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