Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, never one to mince words, has stirred conversation once again with his bold comparison between Indian and foreign cinema. Taking to social media on Sunday, the director expressed high praise for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning while simultaneously critiquing the mindset of Indian filmmakers.
Shortly after watching the Tom Cruise-led action blockbuster, Varma took to X (formerly Twitter), declaring:
“Just saw #MissionImpossibleTheFinalReckoning and it’s MindFuckkaBlowing! The BEST of the FRANCHISE.”
However, the admiration didn’t stop there. RGV used the film as a springboard to make a larger point about creative expectations in cinema. In a follow-up post, he wrote:
“The difference between them and us is they assume the audience to be intelligent and push their intelligence further up, by making films like #MissionImpossibleTheFinalReckoning. On the contrary we assume the audience to be dumb and we push their dumbness further down in the hope of even reaching the dumbest of the audience by making films like ____________.”
Interestingly, Varma left the second half of the comparison blank, inviting followers to fill in the blanks with their own examples of what he implies are “dumbing-down” films made in India.
This isn’t the first time the Satya director has reflected publicly on his own cinematic journey and the choices he’s made over the years. Earlier, he had posted a heartfelt note addressed to himself, admitting that he hadn’t lived up to the standard he set with Satya — a film that is often considered a benchmark in Indian crime cinema.
In that note, he promised to return to the roots of his passion for filmmaking and announced a new project titled Syndicate. Varma described the film as a redemptive effort — a way to “wash away all the cinema sins” he believes he’s committed over recent years.
