Ram Gopal Varma-Well what I can say about this filmmaker; He is a writer, director, producer and his assistants working under him learn a lot to became directors themselves. Moreover he also gives chances to fresh directors and actors to make movies and act respectively under his production house Varma Corporation (and Factory Works with K.Sera Sera). Well I am not that great that I can comment on his production tactics or his directorial skills and so I will only write about his five best movies as a producer/director. So here goes my list:
Note: I am taking in my list all those movies which had the name Ram Gopal Varma associated with them, be it he, being the producer or the director. For me his movies count in whatever way he is associated with them.
1.Rangeela--1995--Producer/Director
Rangeela..what to say about this movie. One of finest things that have happened to Hindi Cinema. Rangeela featured Urmila in a totally new and I must say Hot Avatar, Ramu had Aamir Khan playing a role of a mawali sort of a guy which Aamir had never played before and he also had Jackie play a role of serious guy who did his best too. A movie that featured the good things about the glamorous film industry and the music by A.R.Rahman was amazing as well. Well I can write a whole rvu on good things of Rangeela so it’s better to stop here.
2.Shiva--1990--Director
Although I saw this movie in Hindi and it was originally made in Telugu but I had to mention it here. This movie came way back in 1990 and the lead was Nagarjuna. Dealt with the politics and “gundagardi” that happens in college. Students groups against one another, politics, student elections, Bhai backups was all portrayed by Ramu in this movie as a real life setup. Nagarjuna was great in the movie and so was Chakravarty who played the Nagarjuna’s nemesis in the movie.
3.Ab Tak Chappan--2004--Producer
One of the unnoticed movies of 2004 was Ab Tak Chappan. I am sincerely happy that Ram Gopal Varma doesn’t make movies caring for awards or its success and so his movies are liked by all. Although not receiving any award at any of film award ceremonies, Ab Tak Chappan still manages to be one of the best cop movies made in Bollywood(actually only 2 of them can be regarded as best the other one being Khakee). Portraying the role of an encounter specialist ATC had Nana Patekar giving the finest performance of his life and directed by debutante Shimmit Amin this was one hell of a movie to watch out. I had included this movie in my list of best movies of 2004 and I am including it here too because I strongly believe this movie should have been appreciated by the critics too.MS recommendations of 100% suggest how good this movie is
4.Satya--1998--Producer/Director
Bhiku Matre-The name that gave Manoj Bajpai the recognition he never thought he would have got and the acting he did in the movie was just impeccable I still remember that dialogue--Mumbai ka king kon-Bhiku Matre. Ramu featuring on the Mumbai underworld in this movie, the movie tells us how a normal new guy comes to Mumbai and becomes a “Shikar” of it. The role of Satya was played exceedingly well by Chakravarty and more than his dialogues his face expressions said it all. The movie also featured Urmila in a non-glamorous role and she also played her part well.
5.Jungle/Ek Hasina Thi--2000/2004--Director-Producer/Producer
Well I couldn’t leave out any one of these two movies. Both movies based on different themes but both had the same impact of thrilling the audience. Jungle was really a different type of a movie and Sushant Singh…man what a role did he play. On the other hand who would have expected after playing such a comic role in DCH for Saif to play such a mature role in this weird movie Ek Hasina thi. I am not going to say the story of Ek Hasina Thi but I still feel if you haven’t watched Ek Hasina thi you have missed something and Jungle is worth watch too.
At the end I have to mention about 2 other movies which I had to include in my list but couldn’t include them. One is Company-The movie, once again which had a theme of Underworld and other was Bhoot. Bhoot was spooky and Company had Ajay and Vivek play the role of their lives’.