'Not A Love Story' - another crime story from Varma (IANS Preview)

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) After 'Rakta Charitra', filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has once again donned the director's hat for his new crime thriller 'Not A Love Story', inspired by the true story of the heinous murder of TV executive Neeraj Grover.

Releasing Friday, the film is produced by Sunil Bohra under his banner Bohra International Prod.

Grover was stabbed to death by former Navy officer Emile Jerome Mathew in his fiancee, Kannada actress Maria and Susairaj's flat, that led to their arrest. Susairaj, who was sentenced to three years in jail by a Mumbai court for destroying evidence, was released from jail as she had completed her term in detention when the judgement was delivered.

Mathew was sentenced to a 10 year jail term after the court found him guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

To bring this murder story on screen, Varma has teamed up with Mahie Gill, Deepak Dobriyal, Ajay Gehi and Urmila Matondkar.

'Not A Love Story' was in the news for its source of inspiration.

The filmmaker, however, denied reports that his film is a biopic, but the film's trailer shows Mahie and Deepak killing Ajay Gehi and burning his body pieces in a jungle. Gorver's body had been chopped up before being disposed off.

Susairaj had sent a legal notice to the director demanding to see 'Not A Love Story' before release as she felt the film might show her in bad light. Similarly Mathew had also issued a legal notice to Varma for showing him in negative light.

Varma said that he chose the subject because he has always been fascinated by with the 'psychological aspects of criminal behaviour.'

'After years of reading and hearing about all kinds of criminal acts and using many of them in parts as subject matter for my films, I had come to the conclusion that I had seen, heard and read it all,' Varma said of the film on his blog.

'However, in the year 2008, when I read that a woman and her boyfriend in Mumbai, had allegedly murdered a guy, had sex in front of the dead body, then cut him into pieces, packed them in shopping bags, and then disposed them off in the nearby jungle, I was taken aback. I could not, for the life of me, understand how two such seemingly, everyday, ordinary people could bring themselves to commit such a heinous act.

'What shocked me even more was that there was a love story behind that hair-raising, gruesome happening,' he added.

Businesswise, 'Rakta Charitra' was not a success. Whether 'Not A Love Story' will be able to strike a chord with audiences is yet to be known.