Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 31, 2018)

A striking Italian poster of Sergio Leone’s 1966 epic Spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is hard to miss at filmmaker Raj Kumar Gupta’s sprawling Juhu office. He admits that the film holds a special place in his heart and he picked this rare poster while vacationing in Italy a couple of years ago. Unable to cough up the names of any Hindi movies he’s loved in recent times, he goes back to mentioning Western cinematic legends and his alltime favourites — Billy Wilder and Frank Capra — and sheepishly points out that he’s not watched any Bollywood movies in the last six-seven months.

For someone who takes two years to make a film – Aamir (2008), No One Killed Jessica (2011), Ghanchakkar (2013) – you wrapped up your new film, Raid, in a few months.
(Laughs) I hope all my films get made like this! When I directed my debut film, Aamir, the enthusiasm was different, resources were limited and backing none. The leading man, Rajeev Khandelwal, fit perfectly in the script and everything fell into place in only 23 days. But the journey to Aamir began much before that because stories take years to develop.

Today, I would like to believe that I am wiser than I was 10 years ago. The gap between two of my films doesn’t bother me until someone close to me points it out and it is natural to feel bad about it. But Raid was one of those projects that came together seamlessly and it has been an absolute fun ride. There are so many variables in a film that need to come together realistically, and through all of it, the sole aim is to keep the director’s vision intact. There are so many resources that are at your disposal, and so many things completely out of your control. This one was faster than any other project because the script felt right.

The film is based on a real-life tax raid from the ’80s with Ajay Devgn playing a no-nonsense officer. When did you first learn of this case? What about it excited you so much?
The idea was narrated to me by producer Kumar Mangat, whose production team is constantly on the lookout for great stories. There are publicized raids, but this one was one of those rare stories that had lesser documentation and was pretty unheard of. So I thought about the real-life officer and his journey, with the addition of dramatic elements and immediately saw the possibility of an exciting film. Ritesh (Shah, writer of Airlift, Pink) and I started discussing the case. As storytellers, it was enjoyable for us because of the ’80s milieu, which is unique to that particular period yet remains relevant even today.

Ajay is a producer-director himself. Was he in sync with this vision?
Absolutely! Ajay is an absolute delight to work with. I got to know the intelligent, well-read and perspective actor that he is while shooting. When he reads the subject matter, he instinctively comes into the space of a scene. Raid is set in a realistic world, shot at real locations in Lucknow and other places in Uttar Pradesh and he understood this best.

Ghanchakkar didn’t quite match up to the critical acclaim of your first two films. What do you think went wrong?
There is a notion that the film generated losses for the producers, which is untrue. Yes, it was expected to do a certain kind of number at the box-office and somewhere down the line, we were all aware that it wouldn’t. It wasn’t massy. The film generated extreme reactions — more people hated it than loved it. And today, there are people who watch Ghanchakkar on TV and text me, “Hey, it wasn’t such a bad film!” As a filmmaker, I strive to not repeat myself and Ghanchakkar was an exploration of creative content. My attempt to be different, better…

What could have been different?
It’s tricky. It’s like two filmmakers making an ’80s drama — one part of the audience will call one a fantastic tribute to a bygone era and another part will discard it as a rehash of an period film. So no, at the end of the day, I am very happy with the film I made.

There was talk about a project, Section 84, with Kareena Kapoor, another film with John Abraham and Rajkummar Rao and an action-film with Sidharth Malhotra…
Kareena and I were working together on a film. When things didn’t work out, for several reasons, none of them bad, the momentum was lost. Likewise, Sidharth for Most Wanted. There was a discussion, and then we moved on. With John, I was set to produce a film, directed by my long-time assistant Amar Kaushik, who, I am very happy to say, is now making his directorial debut with another project (Stree, produced by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK and featuring Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor). I am extremely proud of his journey.

My career has always been process and story-driven and I am lucky to have met people who have helped me in making these four films. I have taken my own time and it’s been my struggle, but I’ve always let my films speak for themselves.

Do you have plans to turn producer with a feature film this year?
Last year, I produced Aaba, Amar’s short film which bagged the Special Jury Prize at the Berlin International Festival and the National Film Award for Best Short Fiction Film. There was so much passion behind the film and I am fortunate to have been associated with it. This is what makes me a content filmmaker. I look at my journey one film at a time. The idea now is to promote newer talent and I will be producing two-three projects, some of which will mark the debut of my assistants soon.