Ashley Suvarna (Instagram | Twitter)
Alright, where do I begin? Part of me just wants to tell you to screw the review and head to the nearest cinema hall playing Dhurandhar right now, the other part of me has so much to unpack, I don’t know how to proceed.
Let’s just start by saying Dhurandhar, in my personal opinion, is one of the best films to come out of Bollywood in recent years, not just in terms of story, but also in terms of its genre-defining potential. It’s patriotic cinema at its core, but unlike most movies in this genre, there’s no over-the-top jingoism, no unnecessary displays of deshbhakti every five minutes. Director Aditya Dhar lets the content speak for itself, using nationalistic sentiment as a scalpel rather than a cudgel, weaving together top notch storytelling with just the right sprinkling of humour, profanity, and shock value.
Besides, it would not be fair to simply call Dhurandhar a nationalistic movie, considering most of the film plays out like a bloody gangster drama, and only in certain scenes (mostly involving R. Madhavan) do we suddenly remember that it also has an India-Pak angle. The driving force behind the story isn’t your run-of-the-mill tussle between patriots and terrorists, but one man’s efforts to penetrate and dismantle the Pakistani terror network, his wit and will, and the vastly complicated nature of his job.
Hold on. Now that I think about it, that description actually fits two characters from Dhurandhar.
The first would be Ajay Sanyal, played by the talented R. Madhavan. He’s the head of Indian intelligence and the visionary behind Operation Dhurandhar. A man of focus with a silent storm brewing within him. Sanyal embodies a mastery of the shatrubodh principle, but despite his burning ambition to safeguard his nation and delete all its foes, he often finds his hands tied, either by the bureaucracy or by political pressure.
The second is Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer Singh), or at least that’s what he calls himself. We know that’s probably not his name since he’s an undercover agent and all. But Hamza, unlike typical Bollywood spies, does not immediately pull out a receiver and tap into his earpiece to gather intel, or perform any James Bond-esque maneuvers. He – wait for it – finds a job at a roadside juice stall. Washes glasses, serves tables, sweeps the floors after closing hours, day after day, month after month, doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Well, it turns out that’s how agents have operated in real life. They don’t just blend in, they play the long game and become indistinguishable from the system. Essentially the same as a sleeper cell terrorist. As Hamza’s employer (also an undercover asset) later tells him, he had to wash glasses for six years in order to slowly establish himself and make some contacts.
This film is only the first half of the story, with a Part 2 on the way. The entire movie is neatly divided into chapters, each with a title, functioning exactly the way they would in a book. It allows the makers to break up the story into manageable clusters, and at the same time also prevents the audience from getting mental fatigue from watching a story go on and on without a pause.
In cinema, the level of pressure to maintain a grasp on the viewer’s attention is directly proportional to the length of the film. Short films are like 100-meter sprints. You run like hell from the get go and don’t worry about conserving energy. Longer movies are like marathons, where it’s easy to start strong and then lose momentum later, or save the momentum for later only to realize you screwed up the crucial initial stages.
So when it comes to films that hit the 3 hour mark, even the most talented minds in the business find it challenging to maintain a steady balance of plot development and pacing throughout, which in turn can greatly impact the viewing experience regardless of how good the story is.
The fact that Dhar manages to keep the viewer hooked from the beginning to the end despite a whopping 214 minutes of runtime, highlights the amount of skill that has gone into planning, and most importantly, editing Dhurandhar. There’s always something interesting happening on the screen, regardless of whether it’s breakneck action or a slower, more dramatic sequence. The best part – no subplot or scene feels unnecessary.
I’ll give you an example. There’s one point in Dhurandhar where Hamza locks eyes with the pretty Sara Arjun and the lovey dovey music begins. I immediately sighed. Mainly because I believed it was pointless; the movie was doing just fine, it definitely did not need a typical Bollywoodiya romance arc. Thirty minutes later, I stood corrected. Roughly an hour later, and I was actually impressed at how necessary the entire romantic angle had become to both the overall plot and Hamza’s motives.At that point it felt more like an opportunistic decision than a ‘love at first sight’ scenario.
The other thing I believe sets Hamza apart from your regular filmi spy is that he doesn’t care about being Mr Goody-Two-Shoes. Normally, the agent is shown as someone who, even when he’s made his way into enemy ranks, does not indulge in any atrocities himself, finding ways to look like he’s participating while keeping his hands relatively clean. This is often used to establish the hero’s incorruptible moral compass in the minds of the audience. Our walking TreSemmé ad, on the other hand, has no such qualms. He maims, murders, tortures, and even goes out of his way to inflict carnage for the sake of his fellow gang members. Almost makes you wonder if he’s decided to quit the whole spy business and settle down into his newfound lifestyle.
For me, both Akshaye Khanna and Ranveer are stars of Dhurandhar, Akshaye displaying the same quiet ferocity that Madhavan does, except that Madhavan’s character inspires strength, while Akshaye’s iconic Rehman Dakait is unsettling. His prying gaze and stiff-lipped, almost hoarse manner of speaking makes you glad you’re not in Lyari, standing before and taking questions from him. His performance is so layered, with so many micro-expressions, that the second time I watched Dhurandhar, I began noticing things I had completely missed the first time. Arjun Rampal stands toe-to-toe with Rehman as Major Iqbal the ISI chief, although his role is pretty brief so we don’t see Rampal’s full potential. I guess he’ll be the one to watch out for in Part 2.
The only oddball among all the main characters of Dhurandhar is Sanjay Dutt. I thought his performance as a cold-blooded cop with a borderline comical streak felt nothing special, he’s played similar roles at least a dozen times before. Absolutely fun to watch him cuss on screen though. The side characters aren’t for show though. Dhar makes good use of the massive runtime to flesh out the lesser cast. The sideys get their own relevant roles and quirks, conversations feel more natural, the world appears more real. Just find out what Dhar has done with side players like Rakesh Bedi and Gaurav Gera,even Danish Pandor, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
To be honest, Dhurandhar is hardly the first product to depict grounded, realistic stories with myriad characters themed around intelligence and espionage. Shows like The Family Man and Special Ops have already been established as solid entertainers in this sub-genre. It’s not even the first to elevate these aspects into mainstream cinema. Think of Baby, Naam Shabana, Madras Cafe. Even Aiyaary. The only thing Aditya has done differently is leverage his previous experience with geo-political thrillers to combine the best of both worlds. As a result, Dhurandhar seamlessly marries the scale and pulse-pounding entertainment of a big budget action film with the gritty realism of an OTT crime drama, all while packaging it in a fresh new style of storytelling.
Now normally I wouldn’t include this in a movie review, but since this has become such a huge point of contention, let’s address the dinosaur in the room – the politics. I think I must’ve gone through at least 50 different reviews until now, and pretty much the entire bulk of criticism leveled at Dhurandhar is not about its story, or acting, or any of the essential factors involved in making a good movie, but rather about its ideological underpinnings. Which, in a way, it is a good thing. It probably suggests that even seasoned reviewers (not you, FCG) weren’t finding many flaws in the art and execution department, or they were not significant enough to be held under the spotlight.
But I digress. You see, Dhurandhar makes its brand of politics very clear, right from the first few minutes. It’s subtle for the most part, but there is some truth to the claim that it speaks more favorably about the current regime than previous ones when it comes to national security issues. I mean, they even added the famous ‘ghar mein ghus ke marenge’ statement at the end, either as a throwback to URI, or as an intentional jab, or both. Is the movie unapologetic about its stances? Definitely.
Is it problematic? Well, considering there’s a whole slew of perspectives on that, I think it’s best to let the viewers judge for themselves. All I can say is that the politics is really such a miniscule factor compared to how much greatness the movie has to offer, that it can be enjoyed by people across the board. I’ll go out on a limb and say Dhurandhar could be a case study for future films on how not to overdo things. Especially how nationalism, when used in careful, practical doses, enhances the experience of watching a patriotic story instead of taking away from it.
And the music? Ah yes, the music. Shashwat Sachdev uses a medley of remixed classic songs, folk music, and qawwalis to create a hybrid hip-hop fusion album. Apart from one or two, I didn’t find them too appealing at first, but they do grow on you after a while. In fact I do think part of the movie’s tremendous success can be attributed to its soundtrack, which has already begun infecting weddings and parties across the nation like a virus. Hell, they recently welcomed Bilawal Bhutto to a function with the Dhurandhar title track. I don’t think he was too happy about that. But I’d rather not spend too much time talking about the music. The entire album is available online, and I want you to go check it out and find the proof in the pudding yourselves.
Meanwhile, Dhurandhar 2, the concluding film (I think, who knows), is scheduled for a March 2026 release. Would it live up to the hype? I honestly can’t speculate. It’s not everyday you see a Bollywood flick cause several multiplexes to run 25+ shows per day, some even 30+. It’s definitely the first time I’ve seen cinemas in Mumbai and Pune offering 24-hour schedules, adding shows in the 12am-6am slot, just to accommodate the crazy demand.
Dhurandhar has certainly brought a shift in the way we see Indian spy movies, perhaps given the audience a taste of the true potential of Indian film-making. God! I can only hope the second one is just as good, if not better.
Watch Dhurandhar in cinemas.
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