Dhurandhar Movie Review:

A man in a pathani, sporting a flowing beard and a mane, crosses over towards Pakistan at the Afghanistan border. He boards a bus to Karachi. Till now, the man has no name. He gets off and looks up at a board which reads: Lyari town. No slow-mo or low-angle shot announces Ranveer Singh’s arrival. His first night, he gets beaten up and narrowly escapes being sodomized. The next morning, he is gobbling at morsels given by a well-wisher. Welcome to Pakistan.

Written and directed by: Aditya Dhar

Starring: Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan and Sara Arjun

After setting up a predictable context, which includes the retelling of the 1999 Kandahar hijack and the 2001 Parliament attack (full with real-life news footage), Dhurandhar begins with novelistic promise. It is even divided in chapters, although with derivative titles like “Price of peace” and “Et Tu Brutus”. Still, in this attention-desperate times, it was impressive to watch a film which isn’t eager to impress. It calmly sets up the story, characters aren’t showcased but introduced, and that too only when the plot demands. Dhurandhar appears to be a film which is asking for your time, so that it can lay down its cards. But then two hours have passed and the ace seems to be still far up its sleeves.

After the Kandahar and Parliament embarrassments, country’s secret service chief Ajay Sanyal (R Madhavan) is prepping. There is a mention of a “radical” operation called ‘Dhurandhar’ to infiltrate the mafia gangs in Pakistan and in the process hit an important link in the neighbouring country’s terror network. The old, “ghar mein ghus ke maarenge (We will hit them in their homes)”, routine. Our man in Pakistan is code-named Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer). He is posing as a Baloch to get into the gang and the good books of Rehman Dakait (Akhshaye Khanna), the local strongman of Lyari. It’s a crucial locality and winning over it means ruling over Karachi and ultimately the whole of Pakistan. There are other pieces too on this chessboard of power. Sanjay Dutt plays SP Chaudhary Aslam, a bad cop with a past enmity with Rehman. There is also ISI chief Major Iqbal (Arjun Rampal), who is procuring weapons from Rehman to execute terror attacks in India and the skittish sitting MLA of Lyari Jameel Jamali (Rakesh Bedi), who once patronized Rehman but is now getting wary of his increasing power. In all of this, Ranveer’s Hamza is the Trojan horse, playing these characters against each other to dismantle the whole kingdom.

Dhurandhar blends the elements of a spy-thriller and an epic gangster saga. The result is a film which is always pregnant with promise but never delivers. At a run-time of 3. 5 hours (longest since 2008's Jodhaa Akbar), the film sometimes hits but often misses on the engagement meter. It packs a lot. As mentioned before, there is the 1999 Kandahar hijack and the 2001 Parliament attacks, add to that the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and a track about how Pakistan transports fake currency into India via Nepal. In a meeting, a white guy is called Headley, another scene shows a young boy called Ajmal gleaming while holding an AK-47. Not just the news footage but even the transcription of a conversation between the 26/11 attack terrorists and their handlers plays on screen. The film might be having a disclaimer pronouncing how the events shown in it are “fictionalized for entertainment” but what it is really seeking is to be considered as seriously as a documentary.

Dhurandhar is both exhaustive and exhausting. It has an overgrown plot that is in need of a trim. Although, what is impressively economical are the performances by the actors, each of whom dissolve into their characters. Ranveer Singh delivers an assured act. His Hamza is a calm predator, waiting for the correct moment to strike. The actor also doesn’t let his body language express much, keeping his character shrouded in mystery. Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Rampal are menacing and intriguing but their characters don’t get enough to spread their wings. Madhavan too shows promise but doesn’t get much to play with. The limelight, seems like, is reserved for Akshaye Khanna. The camera can’t get off him when he is on screen. Akshaye’s Rehman Dakait lords over everybody, making the viewer hang on to each of his slightest moves.

It's a pity that Dhurandhar can only be praised for what it didn’t end up being. It is not a vile, loud, chest-thumping patriotism flick. Its propaganda is more solemn and sophisticated and I don’t know which is worse. The film is set during the Congress regime and R Madhavan’s Ajay frequently expresses his need for a stronger, more patriotic government at the centre. It’s like a foreshadowing for the oncoming ‘acche din’ (good days).

Director Aditya Dhar demonstrates technical finesse in action sequences, which are less and confuse gore for propulsion. The violence is interspersed with plot but whenever it comes it feels gratuitous. Fingers get chopped, faces get bashed, blasts show bodies splintering into pieces and people get beheaded. You get the picture.

Dhurandhar piques interest but never peaks. It tries to showcase itself as a film with a labyrinthine plot filled with twists and turns but actually it is fairly comprehensible. When we meet Ranveer’s Hamza there is no doubt about what he is. The actual mystery is about the ‘who’. The film teases but never tells who is the man behind the mission. What we get is a god-awful “To be continued…” and a promise of a second part. It’s a copout.