The SMS That Shocked Ram Gopal Verma

When he made Aag, Ram Gopal Verma knew that he was playing with fire. To remake a classic like Sholay that has been etched in the minds of people, was a hard task. But the daring man that he is, Ram Gopal decided to take it as a challenge.

Ramu also must have seen RGV Ki Aag and must have realised the amount of flak he would receive. All critics trashed the movie and proclaimed it to be RGV’s worst work till date. But more than the sharp criticism he received, Ram Gopal Verma was thrown of the shelf by a real hard hitting SMS. A SMS that made Ramu rethink what he was doing with his career. Here is the hard hitting SMS that Ramu received….

“Hi Sir. To call Aag a piece of junk would be demeaning junk. What happened to the colours of Rangeela and the grit of Satya? No clear story, meaningless script, obsession with dark lighting, weak screenplay, and songs that are too high-pitched and outdated. You were in a hurry while shooting. Fast editing, nonsensical expressions, no romance, horrifying background music and choreography, cinematography is horrid, bad clothes, bad hoardings, bad amateurish dialogues, bad characterizations with no emotional graph for the characters…leaving the actors free to ham…outdated action, emotionless scenes, no comedy, no colour. You should sit and watch your film alone. No freshness, carelessness in creativity…You’ve become over-confident and losing touch with reality. You’re handing over creative work to the wrong people. You’re impulsively doing ten films at a time and not focusing on one project. You’ve enjoyed the shooting without caring about what the outcome would be. You’re busy giving stupid interviews. What have you done in the past seven years except a couple of notable films?”

Says Ramu, “The above message shook me completely. It made me realize it’s time for me to do some serious re-thinking about my career.” Thank God that you realised, as they say, “Better Late Than Never”.