Anurag Kashyap argues with Rohit Shetty’s sensibilities and politics, but thinks he’s the most ‘honest’ director in Hindi mainstream

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap praised his contemporary Rohit Shetty as the most honest filmmaker working in mainstream Hindi cinema today, but admitted that he doesn’t agree with Rohit’s sensibilities and politics.
In a new segment from an earlier conversation with Galatta Plus, Anurag said that he enjoys mainstream cinema, contrary to his popular image as the director of dark arthouse films. But, he said, most mainstream movies today are ‘bad’.

He said, “I enjoy watching mainstream a lot; good mainstream. Our mainstream today has become very bad, quality wise. The only person whose own self and honesty you see (in his films) is Rohit Shetty, which is why you enjoy him. The rest of them are just trying to copy what works, they are trying to be something else. Rohit has taken time to come into his own. He realised he is good at action, so he started controlling that, and it shows.”
He continued, “I will argue with his sensibility, I will argue with his politics, I will argue with other things. But he is as mainstream as Hindi cinema can get. Last was David Dhawan, who was a genre in himself. I call David Dhawan an auteur, because he genuinely created that (kind of cinema). Him and Govinda were a remarkable team. But nothing else… Nobody really understands the world they are living in.”

Rohit Shetty is probably the most commercially successful filmmaker working in Bollywood today. He is the architect of the hit Golmaal franchise of comedy films, which he followed up with his interconnected cop universe of films, which includes two Singham movies, Simmba, Sooryavanshi, and an upcoming streaming series titled Indian Police Force. Anurag’s last film was the sci-fi drama Dobaaraa.