Veteran filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma delivers one of the most vigorous endorsements of recent Indian cinema with his detailed, two-part review. stalwartVarma not only praised Aditya Dhar’s latest directorial debut, but also hailed it as a seismic shift, calling the film “not a movie, it’s a quantum leap in Indian cinema” and declaring it a “warning” to the industry, which he believes now “must be bigger,”

What sets Verma’s response apart is not just the exaggeration, but also the precision with which he explains ‘Why stalwart stand out’In a long, almost manifesto-like post on

According to Verma, Dhar’s greatest achievement is his control over the psychology of the audience. He wrote, “Aditya Dhar doesn’t direct the scenes here, he engineers the state of mind of both the characters and we the audience,” adding that the film “doesn’t command your attention, it commands it.” From its opening moments, Varma says, stalwart Makes the audience feel participatory rather than passive, as if “something irreversible has been set in motion.”

Varma praises and analyzes the film’s formal choices. This is a refusal to be “polite.” He highlights writing that “bites with intent”, silences that are “weaponized as thunderous sound effects,” and a narrative pressure that keeps tightening. “The power of storytelling isn’t in volume, it’s in applying pressure,” he said, describing the film as a spring wound so tight that when it snaps, the effect “seems not only brutal, but also symphonically operatic.”

Performance wise, Verma appreciates stalwart To reject the idea of ​​possibility. The characters, he says, “carry history on their shoulders”, and the film trusts the audience to “read their wounds rather than spoon-feed the stories behind them.” He argues that this is where the film takes a turning point. “Dhar believes that the audience is intelligent, which is the highest respect a director can give to the audience,” Varma wrote, contrasting it sharply with filmmakers who believe in “sucking their films”.

In a second post, Varma expressed his appreciation for nine lessons he believes the industry should internalize. Chief among them is the film’s revolutionary approach towards stardom. Unlike typical pan-Indian spectacles, stalwart Resists glorifying your heroVarma praised Ranveer Singh and called it “unbelievable” that the star “backed out to allow Akshaye Khanna will fill the frame Because it’s what the story requires,” describing it as “a testament to Ranveer’s understanding of cinema.”

Varma also praised the film’s use of silence, “intense withholds” and its presentation of violence as a psychological experience rather than spectacle. Action director Aijaz Gulab received rare, effusive praise, with Verma saying that Gulab’s work “is the best I have seen in Indian cinema,” and that he “can’t think of any Hollywood film that beats it.” He candidly stated that “There is a lot to learn from Aijaz Gulab, especially for South Indian pan-Indian action directors,” as every blow in the film “leaves an emotional residue, both moral and physical.”

Sound emerged as another major pillar of Verma’s analysis. He described the sound design as “the main actor” and credited composer Shashwat for achieving something he “experienced for the first time” – background music that becomes foreground music without instructing the audience to feel it. The result, Verma wrote, is “constant uneasiness yet filled with an emotional rollercoaster,” making the soundtrack the true psychological engine of the film.

Ultimately, Verma was implicated stalwart Not as content to be consumed, but as confrontation. “It doesn’t just want to entertain you for three and a half hours, but its real intention is to stay with you long after the movie is over, and perhaps forever,” he concluded, adding that the film’s success “isn’t just another blockbuster, it’s a warning to the film industry moving forward.”

Aditya Dhar’s reaction to the praise was extremely emotional and revealing. Addressing Varma as “Sir”, the filmmaker admitted that reading the tweets in itself felt transformative. He wrote in the comment, “If this tweet was a movie, I would have gone to watch the first day first show and would have changed my clothes.” Dhar recalled arriving in Mumbai with “one suitcase, one dream” and the ambition to work under Ram Gopal Varma – an opportunity that never materialised, but which shaped him nonetheless. He admitted, “Somewhere, without knowing it, I worked in your cinema.”

Describing Verma’s words as “unrealistic, emotional and honestly a little inappropriate”, Dhar joked that now whatever he makes will have to be tailored to the reviews. He credited Varma for making Indian cinema “fearless, rugged and vibrant” and said that if Dhurandhar has “a trace of that DNA”, it is because when I was writing and directing, Varma’s films were “whispering (sometimes shouting) in my mind.”

The note ended with a touching note of gratitude and closure: “The fan in me is overwhelmed. The filmmaker in me feels challenged. And the guy who came to Mumbai to work under RGV finally feels seen.”

Varma’s detailed, almost academic description stalwart Comes 14 days after the film’s release.

stalwartMeanwhile, it is performing brilliantly at the box office. It has inched closer to the Rs 500 crore nett benchmark in India, and is eyeing to enter the coveted Rs 1,000 crore club globally – setting a remarkable new benchmark for Indian cinema. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Khanna, R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Ranveer Singh, Rakesh Bedi, Danish Pandor, Saumya Tandon and Sara Arjun and other actors in important roles.