Mumbai, March 20 Veteran actor Paresh Rawal and acclaimed filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma are criticizing filmmakers who built their careers on "over-the-top cinema."
On Friday, RGV posted on his X (formerly Twitter) and shared a long note in Hindi, calling out filmmakers in Hindi cinema who still rely on old tropes to please the market, and who don't think outside the box.
He wrote, "Dhurandhar 2 is a HORROR. It is a horror for all filmmakers who built their careers and fortunes on dumbed-down, over-the-top cinema. The cinema that demanded the brain to be left at home. The cinema that was rammed down our throats full of LOUDNESS and MASALA which will now soon be struggling for breath. #Dhurandar2 will scare the living hell out of every filmmaker who still worships the godly hero. In #Dhurandhar2, @RanveerOfficial killed all those heroes who never bleed, and never feel pain, and then, over the dead bodies of those kind of outdated heroes, he gave birth to a true real hero, flawed, yet dangerous and unpredictable, and also his heroism comes from his actions instead of being thrust upon the heads with ear-drum shattering music."
The film has also angered a section of the audience, who are calling it brazen propaganda favoring the BJP government and its handling of the demonetization issue. The audience has argued that the film completely ignores the collective pain of the people of India, who stood in long queues to exchange their old currency denominations in 2016.
He further mentioned, "Compared to this new kind of hero, the godly heroes will suddenly look ridiculous, almost like clowns in a circus. And then their blind worshippers will feel naked, exposed and scared hearing of the collections. #Dhurandhar2 will terrify those who built their careers on action set pieces where physics is a joke and gravity is non-existent. The scenes, where men are thrown fifty feet in the air, bounce off the ground like rubber balls, survive explosions that would vaporize cities, and still deliver punch dialogues while dusting their shoulders will be hunted and killed by the new audience."
He shared that after the audience saw action that actually hurts, that actually bleeds, the flying goon brigade will suddenly feel cheap, fake, and embarrassingly ridiculous. The filmmakers who still swear by wires and cranes to fake uplift the heroes will now wake up shivering in cold sweat. The director feels that it will make the pan-India directors tremble in their chairs, the ones who still believe characters are created by hairdos, costumes, photo-shopped six-packs, and designer clothes instead of intrinsic psychological depth. When the audience of #Dhurandhar2 saw a hero whose power comes from his mind and not his biceps, the hair and costume school of cinema will look like kindergarten dress up.
He went on, "'Dhurandhar 2' is not just a film. It is a verdict. With Dhurandhar 2, @AdityaDharFilms cut off the head of that kind of cinema, the one that insulted the intelligence of the audience, the one that replaced stories with bloated, gaudy visuals, the one that turned heroes into gods and audiences into sheep. The collections of #Dhurandhar2 are now in the process of burying all those earlier makers' beliefs in a grave so deep that even their ghosts can’t come out."
"And the screams you are hearing now of #Dhurandhar2 box office collections is the collective sound which is announcing their deaths. If the makers of those kind of films which are already under production, or about to start shooting, don't go back to their drawing boards and exorcise themselves by watching #Dhurandhar2 multiple times, even GOD can’t save their SPIRITS. But the problem is, even if they intend to do that, they might have tonnes of money, but where will they get the brain of @AdityaDharFilms," he added.
Paresh Rawal quote-tweeted RGV as he tagged a social media user who had criticised the film. He wrote, "Roll over and burn. ha ha ha."
When the user told the actor that such behaviour will tarnish his legacy, the actor said, "I care a fig of what YOU think of the film and prophecy about how will I be remembered etc etc. Now don't fret like a severed tail of a lizard! Just wear your collar and go back to the cage (sic)."