When the attacks on India become frequent, the IB Chief decides to send an operative into Pakistan. That’s Ranveer Singh. What follows is a film that gives you the bloody satisfaction you crave from action cinema and also the intensity and intelligence you want in a political spy thriller. That’s the short take. A longer review follows, and it may contain spoilers.
In Dhurandhar, Aditya Dhar has made something ambitious, something epic. The film opens in 1999, with the Chief of the Intelligence Bureau handling the Indian Airlines hijack in Kandahar. He enters the plane, and one of the terrorists taunts him openly: “We are your neighbour… Do what you can!” But clearly, the IB Chief was not able to do anything – because the story fast-forwards to 2001, and the Indian Parliament is attacked, again by Pakistan-based militant groups. The IB Chief has had enough. “Muh todne ke liye mutthi band karna zaroori hai,” he says – a fantastic line that says you need to fight force with force. And his proposal named Operation Dhurandhar is finally approved. We are now in Pakistan, watching Ranveer Singh making an utterly non-starry entry into the movie and into the country. Instead of a popcorn spy-movie, Aditya has made a sprawling film that earns its running time of three and a half hours.
The Ranveer Singh character, named Hamza Ali Mazari, has been assigned to destabilise Pakistan’s underworld that plans missions and supplies weapons and so on. And from what we saw in the trailer, Dhurandhar could have just been one action sequence after another. But the superb surprise is how much effort is taken to build the place, build the characters, build the various political connections, and paint a vivid picture of just what it is we are against. In most of these spy-type movies, the Pakistanis are the most generic archetypes, like the sly commander and the loyal henchman and so on. But Dhurandhar makes them flesh-and-blood people who have their own internal battles to fight, even as they battle India. I admit that this slow-burn approach took me by surprise, because I thought I was in for a full-on action movie. But after a bit of mental recalibration, I began to enjoy the meticulous detailing of the various aspects of Pakistan, including their version of the stud-cop, played by a terrific Sanjay Dutt.
The IB Chief knows that this is a long-term mission, and he uses a word: “sabr”, patience. Dhurandhar demands that quality not just from its on-screen operatives, but also from the audience. This is not a movie about a cool hero who takes down the enemy with the help of the action choreographers. I wouldn’t call this a “political film”, exactly, but it is a film that lays out a lot of political ground that we need to cover in order to understand that it is not just one top guy at ISI barking orders to destroy India, or rather, “bleed India with a thousand cuts,” as Zia-ul-Haq is supposed to have said. It is a nexus working against our nation, and the film unfolds almost entirely in Pakistan. Hamza has to practically work his way up the Pakistani underworld ladder in order to begin to do what he’s been assigned to do.
And as he climbs this ladder, we see – for instance – how important the local elections are, because whoever takes control of the densely populated locality of Lyari is eventually going to control Karachi. Dhurandhar is not just “a Ranveer Singh movie”. Maybe Part 2 will be more of a hero-story, but Part 1 is also about the characters excellently played by Madhavan and Arjun Rampal and Rakesh Bedi, right down to the smallest sidekick. This is one of the most excellently cast mainstream movies in a long time, and many actors are aided by some superb makeup work. The Sara Arjun character, at first, looks like a random romantic interest, but she slowly becomes someone who brings emotional complications into Hamza’s life. There is an excellent confrontation – and Sara is excellent here – where she proves to Hamza that she can be as unhinged as he is. I really look forward to how this angle will play out in Part 2.
The placement of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack is a masterstroke. Very early in the film, we saw the Kandahar episode and the attack on the Parliament – and after that, a lot of time has passed with us following what’s happening in Pakistan. So when the focus returns to India, it’s as much a shock to us as it is to Hamza. We realise that just because the film’s hero is on his mission, he’s not always going to succeed. It’s that word again: “sabr”, patience. We are going to have to lose before we finally get to win. Dhurandhar gives you the brutal, bloody satisfaction you crave from action films and it also gives you the intensity and intelligence you want in a political spy thriller. The action is outstanding, whether in short bursts or in sustained stretches with a lot of cross-cutting.
The behind-the-scenes work is brilliant, from the throbbing score and songs by Shashwath Sachdev to Shivkumar Panicker’s insanely creative editing choices to Vikash Nowlakha’s cinematography that ranges from stately wide shots to shaky close-ups. This film is one of the best examples of collaboration in recent times, and even the term “protagonist” is a collaboration between Hamza and the character played by Akshaye Khanna. This character may be a bad guy with regard to India, but because we are in Pakistan, we often see him as the person leading this story – and Akshaye is wonderful with his clipped, close-lipped dialogue delivery and a vast emotional range. As for Ranveer, it’s always fascinating to see how he is going to approach a character. Here, he plays Hamza like a man who appears to be carved out of stone. He has been carved out by the IB Chief to play a role. At first, Hamza comes off like a lost orphan – indeed, he has lost his mother nation and is now among strangers. Slowly, as he finds a sense of home and family in enemy territory, Hamza begins to smile. This, again, is a character with a vast emotional range, and Ranveer is superb – as is Dhurandhar. Part 2 is just a few months away, but it feels like a long wait.
