THE OPTIMISTIC JOURNALIST REVIEWS DHURANDHAR - AN AADITYA DHAR MASTERPIECE

The Optimistic Journalist Reviews Dhurandhar - An Aaditya Dhar Masterpiece

   Image Source : IMDB

It takes a killing of love for peace to ensure peace for loved ones

• Anirudh Vaishya, TheOptimisticJournalist

In a country full of people obsessed with ultra-peaceful-living, the amount of ferocity it takes for a soldier to protect such people exceeds the boundaries of human imagination.

Each time a soldier walks into the war-zone, each bullet a soldier fires, each time he attacks with a knife, each time he fires an artillery gun, he not only kills the enemy but also sacrifices a probable life of his own, the one that could have been characterised by a 6-figure salary corporate job, a humble home, and all the luxuries for a life that denies all of these - the life of a soldier.      

Before I went to see Dhurandhar, which I call An Aaditya Dhar Masterpiece, I knew that this film is based on the life a soldier who got martyred while protecting his motherland.

The life of a soldier-turned-spy, who lived until martyrdom in a terror-backing country like Pakistan, was shown with great amount of precision since Ranveer Singh’s first scene in Dhurandhar, when he steps into the city of Lyari near Karachi in Pakistan.  

With the scenes from Ranveer Singh’s story in Dhurandhar, it can be inferred that despite our asset in Pakistan living amidst dangers of getting killed by the violent underworld of Karachi, he made the rulers of Karachi Underworld kill each other.

Our Asset in Pakistan who later made inroads into the Karachi underworld worked very smartly to win their trust and gained first-hand access to all conspiracies against the Indian Republic. 

A spy whose first-hand evidences sent to India were given to a Congress Government that had no spine at all, had to endure the pain of watching India being attacked on 26th of November in 2008 as a result. 

The conspiracy that gives a bone-chilling shock is the one that Currency Printing Plates for India were sold to a Pakistan-based Money Launderer who printed fake currency notes of the Indian Currency Notes of INR 500 and INR 1000. It was believed by many fake-intellectuals that the sale of currency printing plates of Indian Currency could be a conspiracy theory. And the fake-intellectuals propagated the notion that anything that exposes the Congress Party is just a conspiracy theory. 

This shows the India-Hatred of India-based Pakistan Lovers who hate India so much from the bottom of their hearts, that they went up to the extent of giving away our currency plates to our biggest hater - Pakistan. 

When the 26/11 attacks are shown in the film, the one element that everyone ignored was about how some of India’s News Channels and their journalists telecasted every event of the Counter-Operation against 26/11 and how the Pakistan-located Terrorist Handlers used these live telecasts to guide their terrorists to attack India. I would blame the then Congress Government to allow so much leverage to the media houses that the latter ended up helping the enemy.

26/11 AND THE CONGRESS INACTION

The Congress’ unwillingness to respond to Pakistan-orchestrated-terror-attack of 26/11 was so shameless that the then PM Mr Manmohan Singh instead of responding to Pakistan-orchestrated-terror-attack of 26/11, he alleged that India’s R&AW was involved in Balochistan. This speaks volumes about Congress’ cowardice and its shamelessness that deserves to be condemned by the entire nation. 

Source - The Hindustan Times

THE SCREENPLAY

If I move aside the poor policy execution of the then Congress Government, the screenplay carries well-crafted sub-plots of each character. From the sub-plot of Ranveer Singh’s character, to the sub-plot of Akshaye Khanna’s character, to the sub-plot of Rakesh Bedi’s character and the sub-plot of Sanjay Dutt’s character (some parts of his story are yet to be told) the sub-plots steer the stories of the characters really well. The characters are based on real life characters like Rehman Dakait, Javed Khanani, Ilyas Kashmiri, SP Chaudhary Aslam and Nabil Gabol.

The performances of actors playing these characters bring to life the co-ordination among the Pakistani Gangster, Pakistani Business-Person, the ISI, and the Pakistani Politicians when they worked hand-in-hand to mastermind the 26/11 Terror Attacks of Mumbai in 2008. The performances by actors takes you back to those days of pre-2014 era when India was governed by a weak Congress Party outweighed by the above-mentioned Pakistani co-ordination, and makes you witness these events almost exactly the way all those events had happened.

The screenplay begins the film with two incidents that shocked India completely and made us reconsider our strategies at saving India from Pakistan Backed Terror. The introduction of the doctrine - recommended and led by the NSA Mr Ajit Doval in real life, becomes the event that turns the string of events upside down - just like how an ideal screenplay should do.

Ranveer Singh’s character, although inspired by a Soldier-Turned-Spy who gets martyred Protecting India (probably in the sequel of the movie), carries the innocence of any and every protagonist’s character shown in Indian Films. The attack on Ranveer Singh’s character in the beginning scenes of his story and meeting with a juice-shop owner turns his story upside down, especially when Ranveer is accepted in Rehman Dakait’s gang. The character played by Ranveer Singh although shown innocent initially, has shades of shrewdness, shades of a lover-boy who ends up loving a girl way above his standard of living, shades of a man hit by deep shock (later), who then turns revengeful. 

The screenplay ends the film on a high-note and doesn’t make one leave the cinema hall in suspense about what would happen in the sequel that hits the silver-screen on March 19, 2026. The screenplay closes the story of a major sub-plot conclusively and keeps you awaiting the sequel for conclusion of other sub-plots.  

ACTORS’ PERFORMANCES

AKSHAYE KHANNA & RAKESH BEDI - THE STARS OF THE SHOW

While all the actors performed much better than the so called Baadshahs and Perfectionists, it was Akshaye Khanna without a doubt who stole the show. This film has Akshaye Khanna overshadowing all the characters with his top-notch acting. 

Another actor who deserves a tremendous amount of applause is Rakesh Bedi who plays a Politician with such great precision that Filmfare should almost give him an award - he truly deserves it. 

Ranveer Singh is trademark Ranveer Singh with his acting skills - he is phenomenal.

Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Rampal played their characters really well, too. Their acting skills overshadow their screen-time.

R. Madhavan - who plays a character almost identical to that of Ajit Doval, has delivered a performance that leaves an impact on the viewers.

Saara Arjun - she has acted well, too. She steps inside the shoes of although a fictitious character, but plays Pakistani Women with great perfections - so much so that you would have believed her to be a Pakistani Actor instead of her being a famous Indian Actor.

PRODUCTION DESIGN AND CINEMATOGRAPHY

The production design is so good that they built an entire Lyari town of Karachi in Mumbai’s Andheri. The cinematography deserves an applause too, especially during the action scenes.

MUSIC

The Background Music goes in harmony with the story and the songs - especially the Kaaravaan Song and the Arabic-Balochi song would stay with you even after you walk out the cinema hall.

DIRECTION

It is said often times that a Film is a Director’s vision coming to life on the Silver Screen. Aaditya Dhar, the Real Master of all the above-mentioned departments has delivered a National  Award-worthy Film and continues to prove his mettle as an ace film-maker in the making. 

DHURANDHAR is overall a DHURANDHAR film - if it is to be described in 1 line. It is one of those few films that proves that this is the film cinema halls exist for. This is a film worthy of a watch in The Cinema Halls.

I rate the Aaditya Dhar Masterpiece a ***** on a scale of five *

But this review isn’t over yet. 

The reason this film is made is that a Soldier-Turned-Spy, a true Gladiator of the Real-World -Spyverse lived not just to attack the Karachi Underworld from its inner-side, but also left behind legends worthy of being told in the form of Movies as he lived till MARTYRDOM.

TheOptimisiticJournalist Salutes this LEGENDARY MARTYR and salutes the INDIAN ARMY

 INDIAN ARMY ZINDABAD!!!!