Bollywood can’t just stick to making films anymore. Successful films need to be a clarion call for a ‘higher’ purpose. Whether it’s the Kashmiri Pandit exodus in The Kashmir Files (2022), the sadistic torture of a Hindu king by a Mughal emperor in Chhaava (2025), or a visibly deranged man offering his unsolicited opinions on everything, talking at the speed of thought, in Animal (2023).

A similar moment in Aditya Dhar’s second directorial feature, Dhurandhar, arrives in the middle of the second half. So much so he pauses his film and splices in the transcripts of actual conversation that took place between 26/11 Mumbai terror attack assailants and their handlers in the ISI, Pakistan’s national security agency. The conversation has references to Allah, kaafirs (infidels) – and is typed on a red screen. Dhar is a competent director, but he’s also insidiously crafty while inciting anger in this scene. The chilling words on screen, with visuals of a burning Mumbai is not enough. Dhar zooms into the teary eyes of a stunned Hamza (Ranveer Singh) – a deep-undercover Indian spy, who has infiltrated the Pakistani underworld and by extension its terror network – which is one and the same, according to Dhar. There are chants of 'Allah hu Akbar', and raucous laughter in the room. In a later scene, Pakistani characters mock their Indian counterparts for their stoic, measured response to the 26/11 attacks. It would appear that a stab is not enough these days, Bollywood filmmakers need to twist the knife into their audience.

Dhurandhar declares its intentions with the rage-bait and subtlety of a pro-establishment troll. We know this from a seemingly innocuous scene – where the head of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Ajay Sanyal (R. Madhavan, wearing impressive make-up to resemble National Security Advisor Ajit Doval) casually tells a colleague there’s no point telling superiors about a key piece of information involving a counterfeit currency racket, because of the widespread corruption in the bureaucracy. “We need a government that backs us,” Sanyal’s subordinate tells him. “Preserve the evidence, hopefully a politician comes in the future who will act…,” Sanyal responds. The scene is set in 2008, so this is probably a reference to the United Progressive Alliance government, with Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party taking charge in 2014.

Dhar’s first film Uri: The Surgical Strikes (2019) was also born and bred in the Modi era of ill-conceived vengeance. Set around giving a ‘fitting’ response to the 2016 Pulwama attack, the catchphrase "how’s the josh?" was co-opted by many BJP ministers during the 2019 general elections. In his sophomore film too, Dhar doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. So, he leaves in a line about ‘fellow Indians’ often being a bigger enemy to India than Pakistan. This is a thought straight out of a Vivek Agnihotri film – which would refer to ‘Urban Naxals’ – but Dhar shows a bit more sophistication.

Uri was also ideologically compromised – generously shining the spotlight on Modi (not named, but carrying eerie resemblance in Rajit Kapur’s make-up and costume) and Doval (played by Paresh Rawal) – but at least it was focused. In Dhurandhar, Dhar is so besotted with his world and his need to hit as many home runs as possible that the storytelling meanders quite a bit. It feels like many different films cynically synthesised in a test tube. In Dhurandhar, there’s a spy drama, a gangster drama, a problematic love story and also a film about the regional tussle between mainland Pakistan and Balochistan. It’s fair to say that except for a few frenetically-shot action scenes, Dhar never looks in control like he did in his debut.

The events begin with the hostage situation with IC-814 in 1999, and then the 2001 Parliament attack. Sanyal is shown as an itching spy, whose hands are tied by an indecisive government. Only if he could act on some of his radical ideas – one of them include planting ‘assets’ in Pakistan. Enter Ranveer Singh’s Jaskeerat (under the alias ‘Hamza’), walking with the swagger of Alauddin Khilji from Padmaavat, and talking with the quiet sincerity of Varun from Lootera. Working at a juice centre in Lyari (in Karachi, Pakistan) in 2004, Hamza finds his way into the gang of Rehman Dakait (an immensely watchable Akshaye Khanna), a criminal of the area. There’s a spark of brilliance, when Hamza momentarily switches from a cold spy to a hysterical civilian, after failing to save Rehmat’s son from henchmen of a rival gang, showcasing Ranveer Singh’s terrific range. Unfortunately, he’s straitjacketed in the role of a dull, brooding patriot for the rest of the film.

As Rehmat gains notoriety in the area and becomes a sure-shot in politics, he’s put in touch with Major Iqbal (Arjun Rampal, relishing playing the bad guy). Meanwhile as Hamza gains Rehmat’s trust, he gets more access to their plans. The undercover spy film (like the Jason Bourne series, or closer to home, Raazi) has historically been a vessel for the protagonist’s tussle with loyalty towards one’s new-found friends and national duty. But a line is starkly drawn between Hamza and his colleagues. There’s no interiority to Hamza, grappling with complex emotions for people. He’s always a two-dimensional symbol of unquestionable patriotism.

A word for Dhar’s blood-lust in his second venture, where he can’t help but dial the gore to gratuitous levels. I could be wrong, but I believe these portions were heightened seeing the success of Animal two years ago. It’s strange seeing Dhar’s love/hate equation with the ‘Muslim’ aesthetic because he milks it for all its worth – men in pathani kurtas, shampooed hair and beard, Ghulam Ali playing in a tea stall, a techno-qawwali playing during a chase sequence. But he also leaves no stone unturned to equate the ‘barbaric’ ways with Muslims in the subcontinent. An early scene fixates on a terrorist severing a hostage’s neck, another mercilessly gunning down an unusually chirpy female constable and then blowing himself up, a man’s face being torn apart using hooks, another man’s face bludgeoned till his head explodes. It felt mean-spirited to the point where Dhar looked like he was relishing lending a ‘butcher’ aesthetic to the entire Karachi neighbourhood, something often conveniently associated with Muslims in India as well.

Dhurandhar might not be embarrassingly amateurish as right-wing propaganda like The Bengal Files, The Taj Story and so on – but it’s also not significantly better. By extracting decent performances from actors, and a fairly convincing plot, the venom in Dhar’s film is strategically spilled through the selective truths it wants to tell. Hiding behind a disclaimer that urges its audience to exercise their own discernment while engaging with real-life incidents embellished with fictitious elements – Dhurandhar knows exactly who it’s talking to, and how to convince them. To borrow from The Prestige (2005), “The audience isn’t really watching closely, it doesn’t want to work it out. It wants to be fooled.”

Even after a runtime of 215 minutes, a second part of Dhar’s film has been announced, which will come out in March, 2026. In the last scene, Ranveer Singh’s Hamza/Jaskeerat recounts a line about "naya bharat" from Dhar’s first film – “Yeh ghar mein ghusega bhi, aur maarega bhi (It will not only storm your house, but also kill every last one)." I would have taken it as Singh and Dhar winking at their audience having successfully turned fear-mongering into a tidy business if not for a few stray cheers I heard. And that’s the thing about Dhar’s cinema – it doesn’t want to tell a story, it wants to recruit.

*Dhurandhar is playing in theatres

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