Brand Ram Gopal Verma | Statesmen

Ram Gopal Verma, this name today invites groans and anxiety from viewers across India. About 7-8 years ago, it was the other way round. Mention of RGV (as Ram  Gopal Verma is fondly referred to) triggered anticipation in most film buffs. Most of his earlier films were critically acclaimed and moderately to highly successful.

He entered public imagination with his hit Rangeela. It was different from formulaic films love stories being made at the time. It had characters that were different than the stock movie characters of that time. It had a story of a superstar, a starlet and a roadside romeo.

This followed with the crime drama Satya. Like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, which started trend of big family films, Satya started a trend of realistic gangster movies. In this series of movies came Company, which was near perfect in all respects and is infact one of my all time favourite movies.

Then Verma turned attention towards Horror films. He made classic Bhoot and continued making more horror film. This point on it was big spiral downwards in terms of quality. Critics and audiences started disliking RGV’s films. This triggered what seems like an adamant streak in Varma in which he stopped caring for what others had to say. He has famously said,’I make movies for myself’.

RGV ki Aag became his biggest undoing. Lately he has been dabbling in experiments.Department recently was shot with non-professional cameras. As Anurag Kashyap recently said about RGV that  he is like child with toys. He has lost direction, doing experiments with other people’s money. If he doesn’t make a decent movie soon, people might start asking same question as they did for Dev Anand, ‘Who pays for him to making movies?’

Written By Ali Naqvi.