A film exists within the boundary of its maker’s intent. It cannot escape this. It may wander, explore ambiguity, embrace openness, but at its core, it knows what it wants to be.
When we talk about interpretation, we forget: interpretation begins after intent. First comes choice. Camera placement. Dialogue. Silence. Music. What’s shown. What’s ommitted.
Understanding a film isn’t about decoding symbols endlessly. It’s about asking: Why this, and not something else? Why this angle, this line, this silence?
Once you start asking that, the fog clears. You stop admiring the surface. You start seeing underneath.
Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar, has become a colossal hit. The box office numbers grow louder each day.
But behind the applause lies something quieter. More troubling.
The film steers its audience toward a specific conclusion: certain ideologies, certain officials, caused a national trauma. This isn’t accidental. It’s calculated.
Dhurandhar wants you to believe the system is rotten. That it must be corrected. And the solution? The film has already given it to you.
Logic doesn’t matter here. Intent bypasses logic and goes straight for the gut.
I waited before writing this. I wanted to see how regular viewers, not critics, were responding.
So I talked to them. Listened. What unsettled me wasn’t that they believed the film’s politics. What unsettled me was how much they enjoyed it. “Engaging.” “Entertaining.” “Worth the ticket.” It worked on them effortlessly.
So I watched it again. Maybe I’d missed something. The numbers don’t lie, people were showing up. If the film connected this strongly, maybe the problem was me.
How It Works
The plot is straightforward. An Indian intelligence agent infiltrates Pakistan’s criminal underworld. He builds credibility. Gains trust. Climbs the ladder. Played by Ranveer Singh, the agent slowly sheds his identity. He becomes someone else. Someone darker. Someone useful. He enters the inner circle of a powerful gangster and feeds intelligence back to his handler.
On paper, this is familiar territory. Espionage thrillers thrive on infiltration, dual identities, and moral compromise. The structure is solid. Almost textbook. But structure is not meaning. Meaning lies beneath—in what is emphasized, in what is repeated, in what is dramatized until it feels inevitable.
Here, the film doesn’t merely narrate events. It nudges. It insists. It tells you, quietly but firmly: this is how it is. And that insistence, repeated for over three hours, becomes persuasive. Not because it’s subtle, but because it’s relentless.
The Real Question
Calling a film propaganda is tempting. It feels decisive. But it’s also lazy. Propaganda isn’t an exception—it’s the rule. Every belief system sells itself. Every narrative pushes something forward. What matters isn’t whether a film persuades, but how responsibly it does so.
Dhurandhar borrows heavily from real events—26/11, the Parliament attack—not merely as reference points, but as emotional ammunition. These aren’t distant history. They’re lived trauma. The film quotes reality with precision. And that precision gives it power. Power to move. Power to anger. Power to simplify.
This is a skill. A dangerous one. It should be studied in film schools.
Somewhere, there’s a line between artistic liberty and ideological engineering. The film knows where that line is. It simply chooses to step over it.
The true power of Dhurandhar lies in its dialogue. Or rather, in its lack of restraint. These lines feel unfiltered. Raw. Spoken without a second thought.
And in that bluntness lies both strength and danger.
I won’t quote them here. They don’t need repetition. The damage has already been done. All I’ll say is this: certain metaphors, once heard, can’t be unheard. Even petrol doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.
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But credit where it’s due. The casting is precise. Everyone knows their role and commits fully. The costume, hair, and makeup departments deserve mention—they do invisible work, and they do it well.
Ranveer Singh, especially, doesn’t perform so much as dissolve. Frame by frame, he stops acting and starts existing as Hamza.
I didn’t like the film. But I didn’t reject it either. It’s effective cinema. That can’t be denied. It knows its audience. It understands momentum. It delivers what it promises.
And yet, something about it lingers uncomfortably. Not as art, but as intention. The film doesn’t invite conversation. It concludes it.
This is a one-time watch—provided you check your critical thinking at the door for 215 minutes. If you don’t, the film becomes something else entirely.
By Sujay Sarkar
Cinema keeps me curious. I like sitting with stories and asking uncomfortable questions. Between screenings, you’ll find me writing, lifting weights, or thinking a little too much.
