Ram Gopal Varma, whose skill sets as a director have plummeted drastically in the last few years, falls further into the abyss by bringing together a bunch of bad actors in “Veerappan” and egging them on towards even more mediocrity.

It’s not the worst film Ram Gopal Varma has made. Nor is it any close to his best. It’s just a middle-of-the-road offering where seeing an actor look like the mirror image of Veerappan catches your fancy for a few fleeting moments. Once the illusion withers away, there’s really nothing to hold on to.

The film’s deficiencies are most unfortunate because in its pluses we get a glimpse of the old Ramu that we all once knew and loved, the man who gave us pathbreaking gangster and crime flicks such as Shiva, Satya and Company.

Ram Gopal Varma has misplaced his filmmaking skills and he still can’t find it! Veerappan tells us that it took 10 years to kill Osama, 20 years to kill Veerappan and let me inform you it took 203 minutes to bore us to death ! Apart from Sandeep Bhardwaj, who plays Veerappan and does an amazing job of it, there is hardly anything new being offered . Wait for it to come on TV !

Ram Gopal Varma’s biopic of the sandalwood and ivory smuggler drowns out impressive production design and a captivating lead performance with jarring background music

Veerappan is watchable because it belongs to Muthulakshmi. Usha Jadhav is excellent as Veerappan’s wife be it cooking in the jungles for her husband (Sandeep Bharadwaj) or braving police torture for him or loving him despite his indiscretions. She retains the innocence and vulnerability even as she reposes trust in a woman who is actually out to use her to avenge her husband’s death at the hands of Veerappan.

The most engaging scenes are the numerous shootouts and chases, especially one in which Veerappan and his men escape yet another STF attack through a vast area of red hillocks that resemble ant-hills. Men, women and children perish like flies and there are gut-wrenching torture scenes, but the real violence is felt by the ear-drums.