Director Kapil Verma on Rashtra Kavach Om: ‘It is an action film with some emotions’

Rashtra Kavach Om  which opens this Friday, marks Aditya Roy Kapur ’s first out-and-out action drama. Debutant director Kapil Verma says he decided to cast Kapur after watching the trailer of 2020 release Malang for which the actor had undergone massive transformation for high octane stunts in the film. “At that point Aditya, too, wanted to do an action film and that is how we found our hero. But he wasn’t easy to convince. It took some time for him to believe in that world but finally he was on board,” says Verma, who started his journey in filmmaking with a short film Nitishastra (2018) with Taapsee Pannu .

Verma belongs to a film family; his father, Tinu Verma, action director for films like Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, Khuda Gawah, Border… is a prominent name in Bollywood. However, Kapil was more interested in the technical side of filmmaking and chose to do camera work while he also assisted his father in the action department. “Also, my dad never encouraged me into action since it is a difficult and dangerous job having to break glasses, jumping into fire…So I started with camera as a steadicam operator and at the age of 16 I worked on a film called Karz: The Burden of Truth which starred Sunny Deol, Suniel Shetty and Shilpa Shetty. I learnt how to operate cameras and alongside I also learnt action from my father thus being part of both the worlds of filmmaking which is a big advantage for me. Whatever I have learnt about action and camera operating I have put all that experience in Rashtra Kavach Om,” says the director.

Though the film has a lot of action, Verma says, he has paid more attention to the film’s story and core emotion of the characters which he found most challenging as a director. “If a film has only action but a weak storyline and plot then that doesn’t work. Hence, behind every action there is emotion, it is an emotion driven action. Om is the story of a family, of a mother and son and how after one incident, the latter loses his memory. He is in search of his father and along with that there is mother’s emotion,” says the director revealing the basic plot of the film.

While Verma appears to be confident about the film and action sequences he sounds a bit nervous, “because many of the big Bollywood films have been failing at the box office in recent times”. “Post pandemic lot has changed in terms of film viewing habits. We are going through a phase where nobody knows what the audience wants. There was always this unpredictability attached to this business but earlier we had some idea how much box office collection a certain actor will draw. But now the audience is rejecting even big actors left right and centre. I guess there will be some clarity towards the end of this year after a few more releases," he says.

The other factor that has Verma somewhat nervous is acceptance of Kapur in an action avatar. “We are introducing an actor with a lover boy image as an action hero, so we are also wondering if the audience will accept him in this avatar. Will they enjoy it? But whatever be the case, the audience wants to see heroism, they want larger-than-life characters. Fortunately, people have liked the trailer and have found Aditya good. My film is massy and there are some core emotions that the audience would relate to but what I am most confident about is the story. It is a strong subject and one that I feel will draw in the audience,” concludes the director.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.

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