I had not been watching movies these days and I had given the Dhurandhar hype a total ignore when it happened. After a few months of witnessing patriotic meltdown by almost whole country, and criticism by mainly the supporters of opposition parties, I happened to watch Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge. I will try to briefly tell you the reason I regret watching it.
Violence: Whole film is filled with worst kind of violence
From the start of the film till the end, the entire film is filled with sickening violence. And they do not just stop at shooting or hacking someone; they would shoot at one’s private body parts, for example, to make it more vomit-worthy. It seemed the movie makers were competing with some of the worst Hollywood’s unfiltered violent films while making this one. And you will notice that you do not feel sadness or sympathy while seeing these acts of violence, because these have been picturized in such a manner not to appeal to your sympathy-glands. These scenes are designed to “dehumanise” you and if it is a sign of genius, we must regret it. People are shown being massacred and the background music plays as if a birthday party of a kid is being celebrated. Dhurandhar 2 is a celebration of normalization of worst kind of violence.
Language: Whole film is filled with abuses and cuss words
One can even justify the use of violence to show the environment (Pakistani gang-war) in which the story was evolving. But nothing can justify the use of so much abuses and cuss words. As a noble gesture, the film makers “silenced” many cuss words at the beginning of the film, but as the movie rolls, we are made to hear all those words as some kind of necessary special effects. And the movie makers seem to have done research to mention each and every cuss word used in North India at least once in the film. It is really sad at the pettiness of the movie-makers to make our great Bollywood stars like Arjun Rampal and Ranveer Singh who we have grown up adoring and looking up to, abusing each other like worst kind of scums.
Moral: The film totally destroys the difference between good and evil
From what I have read, if you want to summarize all that is there as wisdom from the scriptures of Hinduism, it can be said that it is the ability to discriminate between good and evil. That is why we burn Ravana’s effigy every year at Vijaya Dashmi to remind us of this responsibility. But in this film, the film makers show that the criminals doing violence on the streets of Pakistan are actually noble patriots from India. Yamraaj will be really confused whether to send the Pakistani thugs and common criminals to Swarg or to Nark.
Patriotism: Killings of Pakistani terrorists is the trophy the audience wins
Somewhere in the second half, as soon as the audience starts regretting to have arrived to watch this dirty, violent film, suddenly the plot starts showing the killings of Pakistani terrorists by unknown people. No one knows who really killed those terrorists in real life and most of those deaths could be the result of local gang-wars inside Pakistan, or as one rumour said, Pakistani Army was getting these terrorists killed to reduce their “liability”. But if you show Pakistani terrorists being shot dead like dogs, as an Indian, you are bound to start loving the film. This was the “clickbait” the film makers used, to justify their sick violent film.
Performance: The movie has nothing in the name of acting skills
I remember reading a lot of appreciation about Akshay Khanna’s performance in the first part of Dhurandhar film. But I did not see even a glimpse of it in the second part. Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Rampal, who were perhaps supposed to recreate Akshay Khanna’s magic, are good but nothing special. The female lead (heroine) I read much buzz about, was again, having a small role and did fine but nothing great. The only spark I saw was in R. Madhavan but that also only in a couple of scenes, while he is pretty regular in others. And for Ranveer Singh, I kept getting glimpses from some of his own past films like Gully Boy or Padmavat, or from Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal, or from the torture scene from Chhava, in this film.
Memorability: The only moving scene is at the end and it has no guns
The only memorable scene which is stuff of genius comes in the end, when Ranveer Singh’s character returns in disguise to his home and when he notices that his mother and sister have not noticed him and they seem to have carried on with their life pretty well without him, he stops, almost turns, as if to go back. The movie makers have left the scene ‘open’ – you are free to assume that he returned and spent rest of the life in disguise to protect himself and his family, or that he went ahead and met his family, before perhaps going back to secrecy. Ranveer Singh shines like a golden bird in this scene, the music goes straight to your heart, the slow motion picturization of his home and the farms surrounding it creates a magical aura around you, and then, you get moist eyed. That is how the genius movie makers planned to kill you with the brilliance of cinema, and ironically, they did not need any guns to do that.
A wakeup call for Censor Board
All said and done, I wish our government acts wisely and censors the depiction of so much violence and bad language in such films. I can’t imagine how government and censor board did nothing to stop this sick film from bringing worst language and violence right in front of millions of viewers. Merely giving “A” certificate to such a film does not suffice; we all know that in the age of OTTs and piracy, youngsters of all ages happen to watch these films sooner of later. If patriotism means kids on our streets imitating a foul-mouthed criminal from such a film, it will be a great tragedy.
- Rahul
