Much was expected from Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, as it boasted much of a worthy tribute and a historic remake of Sholay. Malayalees all around were particularly interested in the project as their screen god Mohanlal was appearing as the hero of the film.

And as expected, Lal did his job scat free appearing as Inspector Narasimha who is suitably subdued and the most believable among the other national award winning actress like Ajay Devgun and Big B. The only point where he falters is in the Hindi dubbing, with a characteristic South Indian accent, which has invited criticism from a section of the audience. But the film is rated as the biggest flop of the year.

According to the business experts, the distributors who bought the film for fancy prices will at least lose more than half of their investment making the film a disaster!

Majority in the industry feels that remaking a timeless epic like Sholay in this way was a grave mistake as RGV has tampered the classic values of the film. With a big prepublicity hype ever, the film should’ve embarked on an 80 percent start, but the film opened pretty low than this. The only region where the film grabbed anything better than this was in Kerala, the home state of Mohanlal where the film kept its momentum at 85percent for the first three days. Elsewhere it slipped on Saturday, and from Monday onwards, everyone rubbed their eyes in disbelief to see 20 to 25percent collections.

Apart from the narrative faults, over violence, lagging second half and characters that defy logic, with even the Big B forced to overact, the films stature was definitely unsafe. Added to that was the promos which were too dark and worse, which gave an impression of a B-grade film of the eighties. And the lost chance here is definitely not only for RGV, but also for Mohanlal who had missed a chance of the life time to show entire country men, his greater mesmerizing acting potentials.