Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag : Sirjee & Betelal Kidnapped
Sirjee and Betelal walk out of the theater after watching RGKA.
It’s pitch dark. Two bright shining lights moves towards them.
“Sirjee… I see two lights coming fast towards us!!! Sirjee I’m verrry afraid.”
Betelal… avoid peeing, stand still and let Sirjee handle the situation
The lights stop next to them. It’s the headlights of a big van. Door slides open. Masked men with with automatic guns bought at Dhakan Chap Bhandaar aur Junk Yard, Covina, California… leap out of van, catch Sirjee and Betelal, shove them in the van and speed away.
Sirjee and Betelal find themselves infront Don Gobardeon… the undisputed mafia don of Orange County, California, whom oz had the misfortune of meeting once in this episode.
Seeing Don Gobardeon, Sirjee gets a panic attack. Sirjee under a panic attack only hiccups and keeps repeating only two words - any dialogue from any movie that he would be thinking of just before the panic attack.
Sirjee: Hic hic hic
Don Gobardeon: Chutiye ko paani peelao (Hinglish: Give &%$# water)
Betelal: Don-jee… please forgive me… I will only buy porn from the stores in your territory… please forgive me, I will never buy porn from Los Angeles or San Diego counties… please let me go.
Don Gobardeon: (looks at Betelal menancingly)
Betelal: ssss… sorry (and shuts up)
Don Gobardeon: (looks at Sirjee who is drowning in his panic attack) You watching RGVKA?
Sirjee: hic hic hic… Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Don Gobardeon: (looks at Betelal) Iska hill gayela hain, tu bol (Hinglish: his shaking, you speak)
Betelal: Yes Don-jee… what a movie Don-jee what a movie… it is very good… now can we go?
Don Gobardeon: Saala aakha area mein I have only 2 chutiyas. No one watched the movie except you two. (Hinglish: In the entire area I have only 2 idiots)
Betelal: Yes Don-jee… thank you for the honor… (pointing at Sirjee) he is a bigger idiot and I’m a smaller idiot… but one day I will also become a bigger idiot like him… I am taking extensive training from Sirjee for this… say something Sirjee..
Sirjee: hic hic hic Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Don Gobardeon: Toh Bol picture kaisa laga (Hinglish: So tell how you liking movie)
Betelal silent, waiting for Sirjee to speak
Sirjee: hic hic hic Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Don Gobardeon (takes out his automatic pistol): Jo poocha woh bolne ka… nahin toh pechwade mein ched kar dega (Hinglish: What asked, tell answer, else your behind getting new hole)
Sirjee’s panic attack intensifies
Betelal nervously steps forward: Don-jee… picture is too good. too good… too good. Infact it has has so much gud I was talking to Sirjee about opening a Gud ki Dukaan (Hinglish: Jaggery Shop)
Don Gobardeon: Zyaada phekega toh duniya se phek dega… abhi sachchi sachchai bolne ka… (Hinglish: talking nonsense and you get kicked out of Mother earth, now tell truth)
Betelal: Sorry Don-jee… (cough cough)… Don-jee (cough cough)… I… didn’t… like it.
Don Gobardeon (looks at Sirjee): Aur tereko Bhootneeke? (Hinglish: And you son of ghost?)
Sirjee: hic hic… Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Don Gobardeon (clearly irritated): Jaada shanpatti kiya toh kaat dalega (Hinglish: Act oversmart, get cut)
Betelal (rushing to Sirjee’s rescue): Don-jee, Sirjee didn’t like it either. He thought it was a good movie had it been made in the 1980s Bollywood which was the worst time for movies there.
Don Gobardeon: Abhi kuch bola… bolte reh. Jab tak tu bolega mera katta chup rahega. Tu rukega aur mera katta bolega (Hinglish: Now talking something. you talk my gun quiet. you quiet my gun talk)
Sirjee: hic hic hic Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Betelal (feeling the pressure. starts talking in fast forward mode): Donjee, Sirjee said - Ram Gopal Varma too obsessed with camera. Too many closeup shots. Whole thing looked like a small stage play shot on camera Ramu too nervous too show larger canvas on camera. Shots have boxed up tight feeling, which leads to RGKA losing the beautiful action choreography of Sholay. In RGVKA, Ramu makes camera move but only for capturing such tight small spots the result is he could have not moved the camera at all and cemented it in the ground just like they did till the late seventies. Sirjee thought that Ramu was trying to cheat at his loss of not have a wider picturesque canvas in his head, the result is actors come in front of the camera perform and leave. Hence the fights, actions stunts look like being done a 6 feet wide space for the camera, the zip zap zing of characters running in the left corner, shots being fired on the right corner, the explosions in the center, the synchroized way the action was done in the original is all lost in RGVKA where two or three actors at the most occupy the space in front of the camera in any scene…
Betelal halts… trying to take his next breath
Don Gobardeon picks his automatic pistol up
Sirjee: hic hic hic Bheem Boy Bheem Boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy (stomps on Betelal’s foot)
Betelal: OOOOOOOOOOOOOuch…. but that is not all what Sirjee said Donjee, he mentioned it is clear how Ramu was thinking which is completely opposite to how the thought process went into the original. In Sholay Ramesh Sippy and Salim Javed sat together and spent days together building the story from the idea they had, characters were in the process developed, given sharp definitions, action scenes were thought out in detail whereas in RGVKA, Ramu - it is very clear that - he had scenes in his head that excited him and he wanted to somehow stitch all those scenes in his head and make it into a movie without giving it a thought whether it would flow into a story. According to Sirjee, RGVKA is a collage of back to back beautiful shot 2 minute fast advertisements running for over two hours. Each new advertisement has no connection with what happened in the previous one…. Donjee can I take a breath?
Don Gobardeon: lene ka aur jaldi bukneka (Hinglish: take and start talking immediately)
Betelal takes a quick breath looks at Sirjee: Sirjee… are you ok?
Sirjee: hic hic hic Bheem Boy Bheem Boy
Don Gobardeon’s gun goes up
Betelal quickly starts reciting again: So Ramu was trying to create those big waves without bothering to collect the small ripples. and in the end crashed badly. According to Sirjee, Ramu seemed to have lost all interest and went for the easy way out like using cheating camera tricks to finish the project - the whole thing of making two or three actors jump in front of the camera which according to Sirjee was just like
Don Gobardeon cuts Betelal’s sentence: Staged play… woh tu bol diya…
Betelal: Sorry Donjee. The actors seemed to have turned in a real bad performance too. The director, writers and Bachchanjee seem to be all confused whether they should make Babban Singh a comedian or a terror or the Joker from Batman. Rest all the actors failed miserably. Sirjee gave it a F Minus.
Don Gobardeon: Abhi chup hone ka. Bahut log ne RGV ka maarela hain… tere paas aur kuch bolne ko hain? (Hinglish: Shut up. Most talking same negative things… anything new?)
Betelal: Nothing more Donjee. Sirjee was still talking when your angels came and kidnapped us and Sirjee had a panic attack.
Don Gobardeon: Chal abhi yahan se kalti lene ka. (Hinglish: Leave)
Betelal: REALLY!!! Thank you Don Jee… you will leave a thousand years… will the same van which brought us here take us back or do we get to ride in another car?
Sirjee gets another intense panic attack: BHEEM BOY BHEEM BOY
Don Gobardeon (angrily): Gand mein nahin gu, hugne chale Juhu (Hinglish: No shit in ass, trying to shit on beach)
Betelal and Sirjee quickly rush out.
Betelal: Sirjee you ok?
Sirjee: Yes… thanks for helping out…
Betelal: No problem Sirjee… if this happens again I’ll do it again
Sirjee: AGAIN!!! I need to kick your ass just like the critics and bloggers are kicking RGV’s.
Betelal: It would be my pleasure to be kicked by you Sirjee.
Sirjee: Shut Up Betelal.
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:04 pm
comments on DT are now working
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Good one Oz! Sirjee and Betelal rock - would love to hear their take on Heyy Baby too!
Few words on the whole Aag fiasco. Ramu reminds me of this cartoon with a big dog and a small dog, with the small dog jumping up and down, panting “where are we going, Butch…” .. “are we there, Butch?” - I guess he is surrounded by many such small dogs who will jump up and down panting away at any *new* idea of his. His movies were path breaking - with lofty goals, rich dreams and genuine passion. But his present approach towards making movies is synthetic, sad and abominable.
Ramu must have had this vision when he wanted to redo Sholay - to make his mark as someone who reinvented the wheel, rediscovered the fire, and rewrote the cinema codicil. But he often loses the steam midway - it happened with Daud, with Mast, with Sarkar - and that’s what must have happened with Aag.
Bacchan khandaan is very over rated. Amitabh; why is he shying away from media now for doing Aag, when he once chose to act in Toofan, Mahaan, Jaadugar, Boom, Deewar Lets bring our heroes home, Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon and…. BLACK!!?? And junior Bacchan - the less we talk about him the better. Wish I could just press an undo button and remove the past five years of bacchalan Bacchanalia from memory.
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
rather than making movies… they should make home videos for people to pay and watch… why did they need Abhishek in the song… It reminds me of Shootout at Lokhandwala… why make a movie? Just take your video camera, and as a Bachchan family friend go to their house, shoot a home video and release it as a movie.
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 am
Guys, you are absolutely right. The bachachans have become a royal pain now. Plus when they talk to the media,etc - one can make out what depths these people have plunged to. Plus, now with their giggly useless bahu, these people have become caricatures of what they used to be. I think that they have become a joke in the film industry also. No one wants to work with them or hang around with them. Plus what disasters they have been dishing out…JBJ, RGV ki Aag. in all fairness, atleast Shahrukh or Saif or even salman to a large extent have been treating the paying audience in a more mature manner…
September 3rd, 2007 at 5:48 am
We’ve been having a bad year.We got off to a good start with some decent movies at the beginning of the year like Guru,Bheja Fry etc,but from then on it’s been going downhill.In the past 3-4 months,the only watchable movies have been Chak De India and Hey Baby(somewhat).But the rest have just sucked.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:09 am
I loved it :)
I had always wanted to see a Ramsey Brothers flick on the big screen and the blue green eyed babban was no less hilarious than the monster(if that) in Veerana.
You guys don’t realize how much Ramu loves Sholay…..he’s literally crucified himself to prove that it cannot be remade.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
Right on….But people here liked it when Jr Bachhan is on screen for the song, I guess they would have liked it more if Bahu bachhan was there too inplace or urmila….
Shame on RGV, I dono how can people like bachhan as babban its so annoying…..
Fuck i think we are putting in lot of effort analyzing than what ramu had put in making AAG…..
September 4th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Oh it’s a hilarious piece. Loved it!!!
September 4th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Ramu is one man who puts his money where his mouth is. I think he’s given a fitting reply to all those who thought he was making a ‘frame by frame’ remake of Sippy’s Sholay. A charge Ramu kept refuing all this while. Now he can back it up by saying, “Dekha, mera Sholay unke Sholay se kitna different hai. Theirs was a superhit, mine’s a superflop!”
September 5th, 2007 at 3:14 am
What are you ppl talking about? THIS WAS A FANTASTIC MOVIE!! Probably one of Ramu’s best. The actors were all great. Especially Nisha Kothari…that girl really has talent. Her performance when Babban kills the village-boy was outstanding and Oscar worthy. She will surely get the best actor in a female lead award or even the National award for this! The story was smooth flowing from beginning to the end and the camera angles were amazing.
The only actor that did not perform well was Sushant Singh as Tambhe. The range of expressions of the new guy Prashant was also fantastic. Much better than Amitabh in the original Sholay.
Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay actually does not even come close to this one in terms of excellence since RGVKA was light years ahead of it.
Long live Nisha Kothari !
September 7th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Oz Bhai,
check out dis review of RGV’s Darling by apna Khalid Bhai. Throught the whole darned review Sirjee & Betelal kept poppin’ up time n again. Correct me if i m wrong & accept my congratulaions if i m not.
http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=10d39c0a-a1e4-4cb2-8074-643b6b7339d8&&Headline=Review%3a+EMDarling%2fEM
September 7th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Oh Teri… you’re right Magik… it means Khalid reads the adventures of Sirjee and Betelal :)
September 8th, 2007 at 2:22 am
he fuckin does… rock da casbah!!!