Dhurandhar: Dick Wars

Bullet point thoughts on Aditya Dhar's labour of love.

Next to no significant spoilers here. I have been liberal about using sometimes the character’s names (Rahman), sometimes the actor’s (Akshaye) to mean the same thing. These are running thoughts, not a review. Your favourite film critics & YouTubers shall grace you over the weekend.

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• Much hula-hooping over Aditya Dhar’s craft was done with D1. I dedicated exactly one line on it in my piece on this Substack for D1; I wondered aloud about the yarn-spinning possibilities around frenemies Hamza and Rahman.

• The thing is when craft is limited, you lose the element of surprise. Limited craft can seduce for only so long. No amount of aesthetic can hide a film’s unhappy, broken, moral centre.

• I figured the second film would be weaker seeing the trailer itself. The first film came with zero expectations and baggage. The second film had a giant chip on its shoulder. I felt Dhar could sit on the cut for three more months. The focus looked wobbly in some scenes, the cuts choppy, the slow-mo was used erratically, or, maybe, I was missing Akshaye Khanna.

• Speaking of which, D2 is relentlessly grim, dour, angry. The film lacked a charismatic fulcrum like Akshaye’s interpretation of Rahman. It is impossible to sit for 230 minutes staring at angry men fuming. Dhar is a RGV fan, right? In Satya, see the moments of romance and domesticity between Chakravarty and Urmila, or Manoj and Shefali. Even, the comedy scenes are fantastic. Goli Maar Bheje Mein was a last-minute decision but what an amazing break in the film’s momentum, and it’s a pretty wry and philosophical song too. (Gulzar, we love you!)

• Where is that in Dhurandhar? Rahman’s widow seemed like a fantastic possibility. Wasted. Hamza’s wife, wasted. Don’t these men have love in their lives? I know it’s like asking why doesn’t James Bond poop and pee in films, but, hey, Godard said, for a film, you need a gun and a girl. So this is half a film.

  

• Among my complaints about D1 was the lack of poetry and silence. At least, it had one whole chapter dedicated to the romance between Hamza and Yalina. D2 has nothing of that. And you know, I’ve been raised on films like Munich and Three Days of Condor and John Le Carre adaptations and James Bond and Mission Impossible, and criminal ecosystem studies like The Wire, and, of course, RGV. Look at Jaideep Sahni’s script for Company. So much is packed into 2.5 hours, and yet, Manisha Koirala and Antara Mali have such memorable moments. Remember the scene where Mali begs Koirala to ask Ajay to stop the war? Dhurandhar is over seven hours long. Why?

• Okay, let’s talk about the film’s politics. Aditya Dhar is a Kashmiri pandit. His angst about Islamic militancy and cheerleading for the armed forces and a strong Hindu nationalist political party is naturally going to be many degrees far and above, let’s say, me, or many people both Dhar and I know in life, in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, what have you. Sure. Yet, does he think this was a responsible film in 2026? The kind of shit Arjun’s character says in the film, and especially, his father’s character says (surprise, surprise, Suvinder Vicky) are so full of hatred and just pure evil about entire religions, and this is a very impressionable country, and we’re going through a time of horrific war and genocide, so what was Dhar thinking? Being amazing about your craft and full of conviction is great, but this is a very irresponsible film. If you’re a storyteller coming on to the big screen with a toxic outlook, no editor can save it. Seven hours or seven minutes, you’re what you leave behind.

• Arjun Rampal was fantastic. Really the MVP. His scenes with Suvinder were great, and their first scene together is actually the heart of the film: this is a dick-measuring contest between men without women, and their fantasies. Anyway, I want to see Arjun in everything now, provided he gets films justifying his talent. There’s a cheeky is-jhumar-tale-shantipriya reference at the start of the climactic fight between Hamza and Iqbal. I saw that and I felt, this is a real, sly cinephile over here, Aditya Dhar, but, it’s been put to destructive use.

• I am kind of disappointed actually. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I was bored for quite some time. I was texting my friend, “I want to go home”. The pyrotechnics near the end did excite the Rambo fan in me, but too late. I headed straight for the bar, and it was playing really cool remixes of ‘80s and ‘90s Bollywood songs. And then even the score began to feel boring.

• I will tell you the one time I felt like I was seeing a human behave like a human on the screen. And don’t come at me saying, “bro, these are spies, bro.” I have seen more films than you, your dad, and your grandfather, combined, fuck off. The scene that touched me a lot was Hamza returning to Pathankot in the end. Beautiful song, just beautiful. I felt like taking a train and going to Pathankot. But I’d probably be accosted by passengers loudly watching the pirated copy of Dhurandhar two.