Dhurandhar 

Aditya Dhar delivers the most galvanized kinetic action spy thriller in Bollywood’s history since Neeraj Pandey’s Baby by following the blueprint of Puri Jagganadh’s Pokiri but for an expansive consequential espionage setting that is both savagely gnarly and adroitly measured with no intention to mollify or being conciliatory. And here is the Dhurandhar movie review. No overtures, no treaty, no peace plan, no waiting for retaliation; rather a recipe to strike at the heart of the enemy nation.

Dhurandhar is not a finely woven intricately structured espionage thriller with complex storytelling rather its power is derived from the grimy borough and the chaos that comes part and parcel with the opportunities for power grabs and sheer dominance through shady trades and unsavory deals. Multiple star power which couldn’t be more apt for their respective roles with golden-era Bollywood remixes, Punjabi hip hop and energetic rap music, all powered by the propulsive rhythms produced by Shashwat Sachdev, Dhar mixes all inside this over 250 crore powder keg and hands over a Kalashnikov to a wolfish Ranveer to light the fuse. The result was as expected, a spectacular display of Tarantinoesque cinema to satisfy both types of audiences; the ones with the masala craving palates as well as the ones searching for something of a strategic but also complementing realism in the backdrop of the bloody brutal history between the two nations. Even if Dhurandhar hadn’t had all that, it deserves praise, accolades and all the stars in the world just for Saini S. Johray’s meticulous production design of Lyari.

Dhurandhar’s incandescent strength lies in its ideal cast members, background score and song selection with word choice of simultaneous tongue lashing as well as elegance it finds in casual urdu adages. The bloodcurdling savagery on the other hand that seems to have evoked such strong sentiments on the internet is representative of the projection of indifference and apathy in inflicting terror so much so that bloodthirst in the name of fundamental Islamism becomes second nature. I seriously don’t understand all the hue and cry.

An unstoppable mission-focused Ranveer Singh with piercing vengeful eyes screaming patriotism, duty, honor and redemption together with quiet charm gradually and tactically pivots by cautiously measured degrees until he succeeds in exploiting the cracks ravaged by turf wars and internal conflicts and stirs up the political quagmire enough to trap the barbarians across border hellbent upon executing the infamous strategic doctrine of Bleed India With A Thousand Cuts propounded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and A Thousand-Year War declaration by Ayub Khan and how Zia-Ul-Haq implemented both in practice through major infiltrations in Punjab and J&K, terrorism in the form of proxy warfare and covert jihadi operations all over India.

MVPs are Akshaye Khanna with his infuratingly charismatic multifarious range and what appears to be a guest appearance by Arjun Rampal as a lifelike Ilyas Kashmiri, the once dreadful now dead jihadist military leader who was a guerrilla leader whose ghastly exploits are still being lionized among Pakistani army and its intelligence quarters. Dhurandhar is Gully Boy’s most passionate role since Lootera and Padmaavat and my guy doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t blink. He gazes and glares right at his nemeses. With rocket fuel flowing through Singh’s veins, he keeps us viewers on our toes, uncertain, in anxiety-inducing anticipation as to when he is going to pounce.

Barring some of the over-the-top action sequences, that romantic subplot akin to Anil Sharma’s The Hero and Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi and the extended but I am sure exhaustive runtime, Dhurandhar is otherwise a high-octane spy action thriller that fires on all cylinders and dispensed all the thrills I needed for 2025.

In the end, what seems from the glimpses through montages just before the credits roll is probably based on what’s yet to come which might be analogous to the motto of the Madras Regiment- स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेयः (It is glory to die doing one’s duty), coming full circle with our hero in the coming March.

P.S.- One final note to my peers in the pop-culture critics fraternity who took umbrage with the tonal disposition of this movie- If you lot didn’t have an issue with Rohit Shetty’s Zameen nor with Munich, Zero Dark Thirty, Kingsman or countless other movies saturated with brutality, what gives?

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