Bollywood has spent the better part of two decades trying to make a spy thriller that does not insult the audience’s intelligence, and it took Aditya Dhar, a director with exactly one previous feature to his name, to finally crack the code. Dhurandhar is not merely a good Indian spy film; it is the film that forced an entire industry to reckon with the gap between what it had been producing in the espionage genre and what was actually possible. With a runtime that stretches past three and a half hours, an ensemble cast that includes some of the finest actors working in Hindi cinema, and a narrative scope that draws loosely from decades of real geopolitical events across South Asia, this first installment of a two-part saga arrives with the confidence of a filmmaker who knows exactly what story he wants to tell and refuses to compromise on a single frame. The result is a film that is simultaneously a visceral action spectacle, a character-driven drama about the cost of living undercover, and a sprawling espionage narrative that trusts its audience to keep up with a dense web of allegiances, betrayals, and geopolitical chess moves.

What makes Dhurandhar exceptional, and what separates it from every previous Bollywood attempt at the spy genre, is its commitment to world-building. Where films like Pathaan and War treated their international settings as glossy backdrops for fight sequences and costume changes, Dhar constructs a fully realized version of Karachi’s Lyari district that feels lived-in, dangerous, and socially textured. The criminal ecosystem he builds is not a cartoon; it operates by its own internal logic, with power structures, loyalties, economic pressures, and cultural codes that the film takes the time to establish before it begins dismantling them. By the time the credits roll on this first installment, the audience does not merely understand the plot; they understand the world, and that is a fundamentally different achievement. For a deeper exploration of how this world functions on screen, our analysis of the Karachi underworld and Lyari in Dhurandhar examines every layer of the production design and setting.

The film also represents a watershed moment for its leading man. Ranveer Singh, an actor whose career has been defined by volcanic energy and extroverted flamboyance, delivers perhaps the most restrained and devastating performance of his career as an undercover RAW agent who must suppress every aspect of his true identity to survive in the belly of a criminal empire. The performance is a masterclass in subtraction, in the power of what is withheld, and it announces a new phase in Singh’s artistic evolution that demands serious attention.

Production Background and Genesis

The origin of Dhurandhar lies in a convergence of ambition, timing, and the specific creative obsessions of its director. Aditya Dhar had established himself with Uri: The Surgical Strike, a lean, propulsive military action film that became a cultural phenomenon in India and proved that audiences were hungry for well-crafted stories about national security operations. But where Uri operated within a relatively tight dramatic framework, focused on a single real military operation with a clear objective and a defined timeline, Dhar’s ambitions for his follow-up were vastly more expansive. He wanted to tell a story that spanned years, that moved through multiple countries and power structures, and that treated espionage not as a series of action set pieces strung together by a thin plot but as a deeply human endeavor rooted in sacrifice, deception, and moral compromise.

The project was officially announced when Ranveer Singh and Dhar revealed their collaboration through social media. The official title followed several months later. What began as a single film concept, however, evolved dramatically during the creative process. Principal photography commenced and continued for over a year, taking the production across an extraordinary range of locations including Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Mumbai, and Thailand, with significant portions of Thailand serving as a stand-in for locations set in Pakistan. The sheer scale of the shoot produced approximately seven hours of footage, a quantity that forced a critical decision during post-production: the story could not be compressed into a single film without gutting its character work and narrative density. The decision to split the project into a two-part saga was not a marketing gimmick; it was a recognition that the material demanded space to breathe.

Interestingly, early reports suggested that the project had initially been conceived as an OTT web series, which explains its novelistic scope and its comfort with slow-burn character development and multiple intersecting storylines. As the script expanded and the scale of the action sequences grew, the filmmakers recognized that the material was better suited for the theatrical experience. The irony is that the project’s origins as a long-form narrative gave it a structural sophistication that most theatrical releases, constrained by conventional runtime expectations, rarely achieve. Both installments were shot concurrently as a single creative unit, which gives them a narrative and visual continuity that most sequels, shot years apart, cannot match. For a comprehensive look at how this creative evolution from Uri to Dhurandhar reshaped Dhar’s approach, see our comparison of Dhurandhar and Uri: The Surgical Strike.

The production team assembled for Dhurandhar reflects the ambition of the project. Jyoti Deshpande of Jio Studios joined forces with Dhar and his brother Lokesh Dhar through their B62 Studios banner to co-produce. Shashwat Sachdev, who had previously composed the score for Uri, returned to handle the music, bringing both continuity and growth to the sonic palette. The screenplay, written by Dhar himself with additional contributions from Ojas Gautam and Shivkumar V. Panicker, weaves together fictional characters and invented scenarios with loose inspiration drawn from real events, creating a narrative that feels grounded in geopolitical reality without being beholden to any single factual account.

The casting process was itself a statement of creative intent. Ranveer Singh, known primarily for roles that capitalize on his explosive screen presence, was an unconventional choice for a character defined by stillness, observation, and the suppression of emotion. The casting suggested that Dhar was less interested in leveraging Singh’s star persona than in subverting it, and the gamble paid off in a performance that surprised even Singh’s most dedicated admirers. The supporting cast was assembled with similar precision, prioritizing acting craft over commercial calculation. Akshaye Khanna, who had been relatively less visible in recent years despite his formidable reputation, was brought in for a role that required an actor capable of commanding every scene he entered while projecting intelligence rather than mere physical menace. Sanjay Dutt was cast against type as a law enforcement figure rather than the outlaw characters with which audiences more commonly associated him. Arjun Rampal was given a role that played to his capacity for controlled, intimidating stillness. R. Madhavan brought his natural authority and warmth to a character who required both, creating a handler figure who felt genuinely invested in his agent’s survival rather than merely bureaucratically responsible for it.

The decision to shoot both installments concurrently, a strategy previously employed by franchises like The Lord of the Rings and various Marvel properties but relatively uncommon in Indian cinema, had significant creative and logistical implications. Creatively, it ensured consistency of performance, visual style, and narrative tone across both films, eliminating the discontinuities that can arise when sequels are produced years apart with potentially different creative teams. Logistically, it required an extraordinary level of planning, as the production had to manage complex scheduling across dozens of actors, multiple international locations, and a shoot that extended over more than a year. The production also faced its share of challenges, including an incident in Ladakh where crew members required medical attention due to food poisoning, and permit-related complications during shoots in Mumbai that led to tensions with local authorities. These difficulties are worth noting because they reveal the physical and organizational demands of a production at this scale and make the finished film’s coherence all the more impressive.

Plot Summary and Narrative Structure

Dhurandhar opens in a time of crisis. The film establishes its stakes through a prologue set in the aftermath of the IC-814 hijacking, depicting the negotiations between Indian government officials and terrorists that resulted in the release of imprisoned extremists in exchange for the lives of airline passengers. The film portrays a version of Minister of External Affairs Devavrat Kapoor and Intelligence Bureau Director Ajay Sanyal grappling with the impossible arithmetic of hostage negotiations, specifically the demand to release terrorists, including the brother of a figure named Zahoor Mistry, and pay a ransom of millions in exchange for captive civilians. This opening is crucial because it establishes the wound that the entire narrative will spend its runtime trying to address. The humiliation of that exchange, the knowledge that freed terrorists will go on to orchestrate further attacks, creates the political and emotional justification for the covert operation that becomes the spine of the story.

Following the depiction of the Indian Parliament attack, the film shows how Sanyal’s proposal for an aggressive counter-infiltration strategy is initially rejected by higher officials but eventually authorized as a covert undertaking that comes to be known as Operation Dhurandhar. For a detailed breakdown of how this mission unfolds across both installments, our article on Operation Dhurandhar fully explained maps every stage and player involved.

The narrative then shifts to its true setting: the Lyari district of Karachi, a densely packed urban labyrinth controlled by criminal syndicates with deep connections to intelligence agencies and political power brokers. It is here that the film introduces its protagonist through his cover identity. Ranveer Singh’s character operates under the name Hamza Ali Mazari, a mysterious figure who arrives in Lyari and begins ascending through the ranks of its criminal hierarchy with lethal precision and strategic intelligence. The audience understands, though the characters around him do not, that Hamza is actually an Indian intelligence operative whose mission requires him to embed himself so deeply within the enemy’s power structure that he can tear it apart from within. For the full psychological profile of this character, our deep dive into Hamza Ali Mazari’s character examines every dimension of his dual existence.

The genius of the plot’s construction lies in its dual engine of suspense. There is the macro-level tension of the geopolitical operation, the question of whether India’s intelligence apparatus can successfully infiltrate and dismantle the networks that have been attacking it for decades, and there is the micro-level tension of Hamza’s daily survival, the moment-to-moment reality of a man who must navigate a world where a single slip, a wrong word, a misplaced accent, an unfamiliar cultural reference, could mean death by the most brutal means imaginable. The film toggles between these two levels of tension masterfully, using the government and intelligence sequences to remind the audience of the strategic stakes while using the Lyari sequences to ground those stakes in visceral, personal danger.

Hamza’s ascent through the ranks of Lyari’s criminal hierarchy is not presented as a montage or a series of quick victories. The film devotes substantial screen time to the mechanics of trust-building within a paranoid criminal organization. Hamza must prove himself useful before he can be trusted, and he must be trusted before he can access the information and relationships his mission requires. This process involves demonstrations of loyalty, willingness to participate in violence, displays of intelligence that make him valuable to those above him, and a constant calibration of how much capability to reveal and how much to conceal. Revealing too little makes him expendable; revealing too much makes him suspicious. The film finds compelling dramatic material in this calculus, turning what could have been a routine infiltration narrative into a sustained exercise in strategic performance.

The interpersonal dynamics within Rehman Dakait’s organization are drawn with considerable specificity. The crime lord does not rule through fear alone; he commands genuine loyalty from many of his subordinates, and the film takes time to show why. Rehman provides for his community, settles disputes, enforces a code of conduct within his territory, and presents himself as a protector of the people who live under his control. This complicates the moral equation for Hamza, who must betray not just a criminal but a man who, within his own distorted framework, functions as a community leader. The film is courageous enough to show the human texture of the criminal ecosystem without ever losing sight of the violence and exploitation that sustain it.

As the first installment progresses, the narrative introduces layers of complication that prevent it from settling into a predictable rhythm. The presence of S.P. Choudhary Aslam adds an unpredictable variable, a law enforcement figure whose methods are indistinguishable from those of the criminals he ostensibly polices, and whose own agenda may or may not align with Hamza’s mission. Major Iqbal’s shadow looms over the proceedings as a representative of the military-intelligence apparatus that operates above and beyond the street-level power struggles, reminding the audience that the forces ranged against Hamza extend far beyond anything that can be handled with fists and firearms. Meanwhile, back in India, Ajay Sanyal manages the operation from a distance, making decisions that will determine whether his agent lives or dies while navigating the bureaucratic and political obstacles that threaten to shut down the operation entirely.

The film structures its narrative in chapters, a choice that gives each major section of the story its own rhythm and tonal identity. This structural approach recalls the novelistic pacing of crime epics rather than the linear momentum of conventional action films. Each chapter introduces new players, shifts allegiances, and deepens the web of deception that Hamza must navigate. The primary timeline of the first installment focuses on the period during which Hamza infiltrates the organization run by Rehman Dakait, played with electrifying menace by Akshaye Khanna. Rehman is the king of Lyari’s criminal underworld, a man whose intelligence matches his brutality, and the tension of the first film derives largely from the question of whether Hamza can win Rehman’s trust without revealing his true nature. Our complete character study of Rehman Dakait explores why Akshaye Khanna’s performance elevates the villain far beyond the genre’s usual offerings.

Around this central dynamic, Dhar populates his narrative with a rich ensemble of characters, each with their own agendas and their own relationship to the various power structures at play. Sanjay Dutt’s S.P. Choudhary Aslam operates in the morally ambiguous territory between law enforcement and the underworld, a character whose complexity rewards careful analysis. Arjun Rampal’s Major Iqbal represents the military-intelligence establishment, a figure whose menace is institutional rather than personal, and whose presence reminds the audience that the forces Hamza is up against extend far beyond the streets of Lyari. R. Madhavan’s Ajay Sanyal serves as the handler, the man who conceived the operation and who must live with the knowledge that he has sent a young man into a situation from which extraction may be impossible. Sara Arjun’s Yalina Jamali provides the film with its most intimate emotional stakes, as her growing suspicion of Hamza’s true identity creates a ticking clock that no action set piece can defuse.

The pacing of the first installment is deliberately unhurried in its first half, building its world and its character relationships with the patience of a novelist before accelerating into a second half that delivers some of the most visceral action sequences in recent Bollywood history. The film’s runtime of 214 minutes might suggest bloat, but in practice, the length is justified by the density of the world being constructed. Every scene serves either character development, world-building, or plot advancement, and often all three simultaneously. The chapter structure allows Dhar to modulate tone effectively, moving between sequences of quiet tension, black humor, explosive violence, and genuine emotional vulnerability without any of these registers feeling incongruous.

The first installment concludes not with a conventional resolution but with a devastating escalation that upends several key relationships and sets the stage for the second half of the story. A post-credits sequence revealed the title and release window for the sequel, confirming what the narrative structure had already made clear: this was always designed as a single epic told in two movements. For an analysis of how both endings connect and what they mean, see our article on Dhurandhar’s endings fully explained.

Major Themes

Identity and the Cost of Erasure

The most potent theme running through Dhurandhar is the psychological cost of living as someone you are not. Hamza Ali Mazari is a fiction, a carefully constructed identity designed to withstand the scrutiny of some of the most paranoid and violent people on earth. But the film understands, with a sophistication rare in action cinema, that maintaining a false identity is not merely a tactical challenge; it is an existential one. Every day that Hamza succeeds in his deception is another day that the person he actually is grows more distant, more abstract, more difficult to return to. The film tracks this erosion through Ranveer Singh’s performance, which grows progressively more opaque as the character sinks deeper into his cover. Early scenes show flickers of the man beneath the mask, moments of unguarded emotion that are quickly suppressed. By the film’s midpoint, even those flickers have become rare, and the audience begins to wonder whether Hamza is suppressing his true self or whether his true self is being consumed by the fiction. There is a scene, roughly at the midpoint of the film, where Hamza catches a fragment of Punjabi music drifting from a distant radio, and Singh’s face registers a cascade of emotions, recognition, nostalgia, grief, longing, before the mask snaps back into place with an almost audible click. It is a moment of extraordinary acting, and it crystallizes the film’s argument that undercover work is not merely dangerous to the body but corrosive to the soul. The agent does not just risk death; he risks the annihilation of the self, a kind of psychological erasure that is, in its own way, worse than a bullet. For a thorough exploration of this thematic thread across both films, our analysis of every major theme and symbol in the duology traces these ideas from their introduction to their resolution.

Masculinity and Performance

The film offers a quietly devastating critique of the models of masculinity available to its characters. Every man in Dhurandhar is performing a version of manhood that his environment demands. Rehman Dakait performs the role of the strongman, the provider, the protector whose authority must never be questioned and whose capacity for violence must never be in doubt. S.P. Choudhary Aslam performs the role of the incorruptible lawman while operating by the very rules he claims to oppose. Major Iqbal performs the role of the disciplined soldier while pursuing objectives that serve personal ambition as much as national interest. And Hamza, of course, performs the most elaborate fiction of all, constructing an entire masculine persona, tough, loyal, fearless, ruthless when necessary, that is designed to fit seamlessly within the hypermasculine environment of Lyari’s criminal hierarchy.

The film’s insight is that all of these performances exact a cost. The men in Dhurandhar are imprisoned by the roles they play. They cannot show vulnerability, cannot admit doubt, cannot express affection except through the distorted channels that their environments permit. The rare moments of genuine human connection that surface in the film, a shared laugh, a moment of tenderness between Hamza and Yalina, a flash of paternal concern from Jameel Jamali, feel precious precisely because they exist in defiance of the performative masculinity that the world of the film enforces. This is a film about men who have been taught that to be a man is to be hard, to be certain, to be capable of violence, and it shows, with unflinching clarity, where that teaching leads.

Loyalty and Betrayal

In the world of Dhurandhar, loyalty is the currency that keeps you alive and betrayal is the act that gets you killed, but the film complicates both concepts by placing its protagonist in a position where loyalty to his country requires him to betray every personal relationship he forms. Hamza must earn the trust of men like Rehman Dakait and then, eventually, destroy them. The film does not treat this as a simple heroic act. It shows the audience the genuine connections that form between Hamza and the people around him, the moments of shared laughter, mutual respect, and even affection that develop organically within the criminal ecosystem. When betrayal comes, as it must, it carries real weight because the film has taken the time to establish that these relationships are not purely transactional.

The theme extends beyond the protagonist. Every major character in the film is navigating their own web of loyalties and betrayals. S.P. Choudhary Aslam serves multiple masters while answering, ultimately, only to his own survival instincts. Major Iqbal’s loyalty to the military establishment conflicts with his personal ambitions and his strategic calculations. Even Rehman Dakait, the film’s primary antagonist in its first installment, operates within a framework of loyalty to his community and his people, however warped by violence and self-interest that loyalty may be. The film argues, persuasively, that in the world of espionage and organized crime, loyalty is never absolute; it is always conditional, always negotiable, and always, ultimately, destructible.

Violence and Its Consequences

Dhurandhar is an extraordinarily violent film, earning its Adults Only certificate through sustained sequences of brutal, visceral combat that refuse to glamorize the damage human beings can inflict on one another. But the film’s relationship to violence is more complicated than its body count suggests. Dhar does not deploy violence for shock value alone; he uses it as a narrative tool that serves specific dramatic functions. The violence in Dhurandhar is almost always consequential. When characters are hurt, they stay hurt. When characters kill, the act registers on them. The film builds a visual vocabulary in which violence is ugly, messy, and deeply personal, standing in sharp contrast to the weightless, consequence-free action that dominates most mainstream Bollywood films.

This approach is particularly effective because it forces the audience to reckon with what they are watching rather than simply consuming it as spectacle. The hand-to-hand combat sequences are staged with a raw physicality that emphasizes effort, pain, and the real risk of failure. When Hamza fights, he does not move with the choreographed grace of a martial arts master; he fights like a man who has been trained to neutralize threats as efficiently as possible, and the difference in aesthetic is both refreshing and unsettling. The violence in Dhurandhar asks the audience to consider whether the ends justify the means, and the film is honest enough not to provide a comfortable answer. For a detailed ranking and analysis of how each action sequence functions within this framework, see our breakdown of every major action scene in both films.

There is also a crucial distinction the film draws between different categories of violence. The violence committed by criminals in the service of power and profit is presented as corrosive and self-perpetuating, a cycle that consumes everyone it touches. The violence committed by the state, through its covert agent, is presented as purposeful and directed, but the film is perceptive enough to show that this distinction, so clear in the briefing room, becomes nearly invisible in the field. When Hamza commits acts of violence to maintain his cover, he is doing so in the name of a mission that serves his country, but the physical act itself, the impact of fist on bone, the sound of a body hitting the ground, is indistinguishable from the violence committed by the criminals around him. The film uses this ambiguity to raise uncomfortable questions about whether the moral justification for violence changes its nature or merely changes how we feel about it afterward.

The Machinery of the State

Beneath its surface narrative of gangsters and spies, Dhurandhar is a film about how nation-states project power through deniable means. The covert operation at the heart of the story is one that cannot be officially acknowledged; its architects will never receive public credit for its successes, and its failures, should they occur, will be disavowed entirely. This creates a fascinating power dynamic in which the protagonist is simultaneously the instrument of his government’s will and completely expendable in the eyes of that same government. The film draws on real events from the history of South Asian geopolitics to ground this theme in recognizable reality, referencing terrorist incidents, parliamentary attacks, and intelligence operations that will be familiar to any informed viewer.

The film does not present the state apparatus uncritically. While the operation itself is framed as a necessary response to genuine threats, the human cost of that necessity is never minimized. Ajay Sanyal, the RAW officer who conceives and authorizes the mission, is portrayed not as a noble patriot but as a man making calculated decisions about other people’s lives, a strategist who must weigh acceptable losses and who understands, perhaps better than anyone, that the agent he has deployed may never come home. This nuance is what distinguishes Dhurandhar from simpler flag-waving exercises in the genre.

The film also engages with the moral paradox at the heart of covert operations: that the defense of democratic values sometimes requires methods that are themselves fundamentally undemocratic. The operation depicted in the film involves deception, infiltration, manipulation, and ultimately violence, none of which are consistent with the principles of transparency, consent, and rule of law that the operation is ostensibly designed to protect. The film does not resolve this paradox, nor should it. Instead, it presents the tension honestly, allowing the audience to sit with the discomfort of knowing that the safety they enjoy may depend on actions they would find repugnant if they knew the full details. This is mature, thoughtful filmmaking that treats its genre as a vehicle for genuine moral inquiry rather than merely as an excuse for spectacle. The way the film navigates this terrain distinguishes it from simplistic glorifications of state power while also refusing the equally simplistic position that all covert action is inherently unjustifiable.

The Geography of Power

One of the film’s most sophisticated thematic achievements is its use of physical space as a metaphor for power dynamics. Lyari, as depicted in the film, is not just a setting; it is a character unto itself, a claustrophobic labyrinth where power is measured in city blocks, where the street you control determines your place in the hierarchy, and where the narrow alleyways and crumbling buildings create a physical environment that mirrors the moral constriction of its inhabitants. The film contrasts this cramped, chaotic urban landscape with the spacious, clinical environments of the intelligence agencies and government offices where the operation is planned, creating a visual shorthand for the distance between those who give orders and those who must carry them out in the field.

This spatial metaphor extends to the characters themselves. Rehman Dakait is most powerful within his territory, within the dense urban fabric of Lyari where every alley is known to him and every corner holds either an ally or a subordinate. When the film shows him in spaces outside this domain, his authority diminishes perceptibly. Hamza, by contrast, is a man without a territory; he belongs nowhere and must function everywhere, adapting his spatial behavior to match whatever environment he finds himself in. The film’s camera observes how different characters move through space: Rehman occupies the center of every room, expanding to fill whatever space he enters; Hamza positions himself along the edges, watchful, ready to move, never allowing himself to be cornered but never claiming spatial dominance. Major Iqbal moves through spaces as though he owns them by institutional right, with the rigid stride of a military man who has internalized the idea that the state’s authority extends to every inch of ground.

The use of rooftops as a recurring location adds another dimension to this spatial vocabulary. Rooftops in the film are the only spaces where characters can see beyond the narrow confines of the streets, where perspective opens up and the larger picture becomes visible. It is on rooftops that some of the film’s most reflective and revelatory conversations take place, as though the act of rising above the street level, even temporarily, grants access to a different kind of understanding. Hamza’s moments of solitude on rooftops, looking out over the city that is both his prison and his hunting ground, are among the film’s most visually and emotionally evocative sequences.

Symbolism and Motifs

Dhurandhar is rich with visual and narrative motifs that reward attentive viewing. The recurring imagery of masks and disguises extends beyond the protagonist’s false identity to encompass nearly every character in the film. Rehman Dakait presents himself as a community leader even as he profits from that community’s suffering. S.P. Choudhary Aslam wears the uniform of law enforcement while operating by the rules of the jungle. Major Iqbal cloaks institutional violence in the language of national security. The film argues that in the world it depicts, everyone is performing a version of themselves, and the question is not who is lying but who is lying most effectively.

The motif of the telephone call recurs throughout the film as a symbol of the fragile connection between Hamza’s true identity and his cover. Each time he communicates with his handlers, he risks exposure, and the film stages these moments with excruciating tension, using the physical act of making a clandestine call in a dangerous environment as a visual metaphor for the thread by which his entire mission, and his life, hangs.

The film’s use of color is deliberate and meaningful. The Lyari sequences are rendered in a palette of dusty earth tones, washed-out yellows, and deep shadows, creating a visual environment that feels simultaneously sun-baked and lightless. This stands in contrast to the cooler, more institutional blues and grays of the Indian intelligence sequences, establishing a visual distinction between the two worlds that Hamza must navigate. Night scenes in Lyari are lit with a warm amber glow that gives the streets an almost infernal quality, as though the neighborhood itself is burning from within.

The recurring imagery of food and communal eating serves as a motif for trust and acceptance within the criminal ecosystem. Some of the most important relationship-building moments in the film occur over shared meals, and the film uses the intimacy of breaking bread together as a counterpoint to the violence that surrounds these characters. When Hamza eats with Rehman’s inner circle, he is not merely consuming food; he is consuming a role, ingesting the fiction of his identity bite by bite.

Blood functions as a multivalent symbol throughout the film, carrying different meanings depending on context. In the violence sequences, blood is literal and graphic, a reminder of the physical cost of the life these characters have chosen. But blood also operates metaphorically: the concept of blood ties, blood loyalty, blood feuds, and blood debts recurs in dialogue and visual imagery, creating a web of meaning that connects the personal to the political. The film suggests that in the world of Lyari, everything ultimately comes down to blood, whether shed in violence or shared through kinship, and that the two are often indistinguishable.

The motif of doors and thresholds recurs throughout the film as a visual metaphor for the choices that define its characters. Hamza is constantly crossing thresholds, entering rooms where his identity could be exposed, stepping through doorways that take him deeper into his cover and further from his true self. The film stages several of its most tension-laden scenes around the act of entering or leaving a space, using the physical architecture of doors, gates, narrow passages, and checkpoints to externalize the internal drama of a man navigating between worlds. There is a recurring visual pattern in which Hamza pauses at a threshold, and the camera holds on his face for a fraction of a second longer than expected, capturing the micro-expressions that reveal the calculation happening behind his eyes before he commits to crossing.

The film also employs the motif of language itself as a marker of identity and belonging. Hamza must speak, think, and even dream in a language and dialect that are not his own. The film pays careful attention to the linguistic textures of Lyari, to the specific Urdu inflections, the Balochi phrases, the slang and verbal codes that mark someone as an insider or an outsider. The audience understands that every word Hamza speaks is a performance, a potentially fatal one, and this awareness transforms even mundane conversational scenes into exercises in suspense. The moments when Hamza’s Punjabi roots threaten to surface through a mispronounced word or an unfamiliar idiom are among the film’s most quietly terrifying sequences.

Performances

Ranveer Singh as Hamza Ali Mazari / Jaskirat Singh Rangi

It is no exaggeration to say that Ranveer Singh’s performance in Dhurandhar represents a fundamental shift in his artistic identity. Known for performances built on explosive energy, whether as the raging warrior in Padmaavat, the manic lover in Ram-Leela, or the furious rapper in Gully Boy, Singh has built his reputation on characters who express everything they feel with maximum intensity. Hamza Ali Mazari is the opposite of everything Singh has done before. He is a man who cannot afford to express anything, for whom every visible emotion could be a death sentence, and Singh inhabits this constraint with remarkable discipline.

The physical transformation is the first thing the audience notices. Singh carries himself differently in this film, moving through spaces with a coiled, watchful energy that suggests a predator disguised as prey. His body language communicates constant vigilance; his eyes scan rooms before he enters them, his posture shifts subtly depending on who he is speaking to, and his hands, which in previous roles might have been used for expansive gestures, are kept close to his body, ready to act. The accent work is notable as well, with Singh adopting a credible vocal identity for his cover that he maintains with impressive consistency across the film’s considerable runtime.

But the performance’s greatest achievement is in the moments of vulnerability that break through the mask. There are scenes, brief and carefully rationed, where Hamza is alone and the weight of his existence becomes visible. Singh plays these moments with a rawness that is all the more powerful for how rarely the film allows them. A moment of solitude in a cramped room, a flash of recognition when he hears something that connects him to his former life, a barely suppressed tremor when violence escalates beyond what even his training prepared him for; these are the moments that transform a genre exercise into a human story, and Singh delivers them with the precision of an actor working at the peak of his abilities. Our full exploration of why this is Singh’s career-defining role traces the trajectory from his earliest work to this performance.

Akshaye Khanna as Rehman Dakait

If Singh is the soul of Dhurandhar, Akshaye Khanna is its electric current. His portrayal of Rehman Dakait is the kind of villain performance that elevates an entire film, a creation so compelling, so fully realized, and so genuinely frightening that every scene he occupies crackles with unpredictable energy. Khanna plays Rehman not as a one-dimensional monster but as a man of genuine intelligence and even charm, which makes his capacity for extreme violence all the more disturbing.

The genius of Khanna’s approach is that he makes the audience understand why people follow Rehman. He is charismatic in the way that true power brokers are charismatic, projecting an authority that is rooted not in physical intimidation alone but in a genuine ability to read people, to identify their weaknesses and desires, and to use that understanding to bind them to his cause. When he enters a room, the dynamic of the scene shifts immediately, and Khanna achieves this not through actorly tricks but through the sheer force of a performance grounded in specificity and commitment.

The face-off scenes between Singh and Khanna are among the finest sequences of sustained tension in recent Bollywood history. Both actors understand that the real drama is not in what their characters say to each other but in what they are thinking, calculating, and concealing beneath the surface of every exchange. These scenes function as psychological chess matches, and they are staged and performed with a restraint that trusts the audience to read between the lines. For a complete exploration of what makes this character work, see our dedicated Rehman Dakait character analysis.

Sanjay Dutt as S.P. Choudhary Aslam

Sanjay Dutt brings a weathered gravitas to the role of S.P. Choudhary Aslam, a character inspired by a real Pakistani police officer known for his ruthless approach to law enforcement in Karachi. Dutt, whose own career has encompassed both sensitive dramatic work and broad action filmmaking, finds the exact register this character requires: a man who is simultaneously a protector and a predator, who enforces the law through methods that are themselves lawless, and who occupies a moral gray zone so murky that even the audience cannot be sure whether to root for him or fear him.

The physicality of the performance is important. Dutt’s imposing frame and deep, resonant voice give Aslam an immediate authority that requires no exposition. When he speaks, people listen, and when he acts, the consequences are severe and immediate. But the performance also finds moments of surprising tenderness and even humor, particularly in Aslam’s interactions with characters who occupy a lower rung of the power hierarchy. These moments humanize the character without excusing his brutality, which is precisely the balance the film requires.

Arjun Rampal as Major Iqbal

Arjun Rampal’s Major Iqbal is the character who most clearly represents the institutional dimension of the threat facing Hamza. Where Rehman Dakait is a street-level power broker whose violence is personal and visceral, Major Iqbal is a creature of systems and structures, a man whose menace is procedural and bureaucratic. Rampal plays this distinction beautifully, delivering a performance of cold precision that stands in deliberate contrast to the heated emotionalism of the characters around him.

The character is a military man, and Rampal embodies the discipline and controlled aggression that implies. His posture is rigid, his movements are economical, and his voice rarely rises above a carefully modulated conversational tone. The effect is more frightening than any amount of shouting would be, because it suggests a character who has complete control over his emotions and who deploys violence not as an expression of rage but as a calculated instrument of policy. As the franchise’s most dangerous antagonist, Rampal’s Major Iqbal is the threat that grows more terrifying with each installment.

R. Madhavan as Ajay Sanyal

R. Madhavan’s portrayal of Ajay Sanyal adds a layer of moral complexity to the film that it desperately needs. Sanyal is the architect of Operation Dhurandhar, the man whose strategic vision set the entire plot in motion, and Madhavan plays him as a man who is brilliant, dedicated, and haunted by the consequences of his own decisions. The performance is notable for its restraint; Madhavan does not play Sanyal as a chest-thumping patriot but as a calculating intelligence professional who understands that the agent he has deployed is, in the cold calculus of espionage, an acceptable loss should the mission require it.

The character is inspired, loosely, by real figures in Indian intelligence, and Madhavan brings a specificity to the role that suggests deep research and careful thought about how such a person would actually behave. His scenes with other government officials are staged as exercises in bureaucratic maneuvering, in which the real battles are fought not with weapons but with memos, authorizations, and the careful management of information. For a complete profile, see our Ajay Sanyal character analysis.

Sara Arjun as Yalina Jamali

Sara Arjun’s Yalina Jamali serves a crucial narrative and emotional function within the film. As Hamza’s closest ally inside Lyari, Yalina represents the human connections that the protagonist forms within his cover identity, connections that are simultaneously genuine and founded on deception. Arjun plays the character with a quiet intensity that belies her youth, bringing an emotional intelligence to scenes that could easily have been reduced to simple romantic interest or damsel-in-distress cliches.

What makes the performance work is Arjun’s ability to convey Yalina’s growing unease about Hamza without ever stating it explicitly. Through small gestures, lingering glances, and a progressively more guarded body language, Arjun communicates the character’s dawning suspicion that the man she trusts is not who he claims to be. This slow-burning dramatic irony is one of the film’s most effective narrative devices, and Arjun’s performance is the engine that drives it. The full dimensions of this character are explored in our Yalina Jamali character analysis.

The Supporting Ensemble

One of Dhurandhar’s great strengths is the depth of its supporting cast. Rakesh Bedi’s Jameel Jamali has emerged as an audience favorite, bringing unexpected warmth and even comic relief to a film that might otherwise be relentlessly grim. His performance demonstrates the film’s understanding that criminal ecosystems, like any community, contain the full range of human personalities, and that moments of levity can coexist with extreme danger without diminishing either. Gaurav Gera’s Mohammad Aalam, Danish Pandor’s Uzair Baloch, and Manav Gohil’s Sushant Bansal each contribute distinctive textures to the ensemble, creating a population of characters that feels authentic rather than generic. For an in-depth look at these performances, our article on every major supporting character in Dhurandhar examines what each brings to the table.

Direction and Technical Craft

Aditya Dhar’s achievement in Dhurandhar is, above all, an achievement of sustained creative control over an enormously complex production. Directing a film of this scope, with this many characters, this many locations, this much action, and this ambitious a narrative structure, requires not just talent but organizational mastery, and Dhar demonstrates both in abundance. His directorial approach is characterized by a willingness to let scenes breathe, to trust the audience’s patience, and to find the human story within the spectacle. For a comprehensive examination of his evolving craft, our analysis of Aditya Dhar’s filmmaking style traces the through-lines from his debut to this ambitious duology.

The cinematography in Dhurandhar deserves particular attention. The film employs a visual grammar that shifts depending on context, using handheld, documentary-style camerawork for the Lyari sequences to create a sense of immediacy and danger, then switching to more controlled, composed framing for the intelligence and government scenes to convey institutional order and distance. The camera is almost always at eye level or below in the Lyari scenes, placing the viewer in the physical perspective of the characters and creating a persistent feeling of claustrophobia and vulnerability. In contrast, the government and intelligence sequences frequently use wider shots and higher angles that suggest surveillance and control, visually reinforcing the power dynamics at play.

The editing is a particular triumph given the film’s runtime. At 214 minutes, a lesser editor would have produced a film that felt bloated or repetitive, but Dhurandhar maintains a sense of forward momentum throughout, varying its rhythms effectively between slow-burn character scenes and explosive action sequences. The chapter structure helps enormously in this regard, providing natural punctuation points that allow the audience to reset and recalibrate before the next movement begins.

The action choreography in Dhurandhar sets a new standard for Indian cinema. The hand-to-hand combat is designed around realism rather than spectacle, emphasizing the physicality of fighting: the effort of throwing a punch, the pain of absorbing one, the exhaustion that accumulates over the course of a prolonged confrontation. This approach makes the violence feel consequential in a way that wire-assisted, gravity-defying combat never can. The gun battles, similarly, are staged with an attention to tactical reality that suggests serious research into how actual firefights unfold in confined urban environments.

The production design is extraordinary. Creating a convincing version of Karachi’s Lyari district was perhaps the production’s greatest technical challenge, and the result is a fully immersive environment that feels authentic in its detail. The narrow streets, the crumbling architecture, the market stalls, the interiors of various homes and businesses; every element of the production design contributes to the creation of a world that the audience can believe exists. Filming locations across India and Thailand were transformed through meticulous set dressing and digital enhancement into a remarkably cohesive vision of a place that most of the audience has never visited and may never visit, yet which they feel they understand by the film’s end.

The sound design complements the visual design in building the world of the film. The sonic texture of Lyari, a constant background of traffic, voices, music from distant radios, the call to prayer, and the ambient noise of a densely packed urban environment, is layered throughout the film in a way that makes the setting feel three-dimensional. The sound design during action sequences is particularly effective, using the percussive impact of gunfire and physical combat to create an almost visceral experience for the audience.

One of Dhar’s most underappreciated skills as a director is his ability to manage information flow within complex scenes. In sequences involving multiple characters with conflicting agendas, each possessing different pieces of information that the audience must track simultaneously, Dhar uses blocking, eyeline matching, and subtle shifts in camera focus to guide attention without resorting to exposition. There are scenes in this film, particularly in the middle act, where five or six characters are navigating a social situation that is, beneath its surface pleasantries, a minefield of suspicion and calculation, and Dhar stages these scenes with a clarity that makes the subtext legible without ever making it explicit. This is sophisticated filmmaking, the kind that does not announce itself but that creates the conditions for the audience to feel smart rather than patronized.

The film’s use of practical effects wherever possible, as opposed to reliance on digital augmentation, gives its action sequences a tactile quality that audiences have responded to enthusiastically. When a wall is broken, it breaks with the weight and debris of actual building materials. When a vehicle crashes, the impact registers through the camera shake and the sound design as something that happened in physical space rather than in a computer. This commitment to practical filmmaking is part of what gives Dhurandhar its distinctive texture and separates it from the increasingly digital aesthetic of mainstream Bollywood action cinema. Dhar understands that audiences can feel the difference between a real stunt and a digital one, even if they cannot always articulate what that difference is, and he has built his action philosophy around that understanding.

The collaborative relationship between Dhar and his key technical departments deserves recognition. The costume design contributes significantly to character establishment and world-building, with each character’s wardrobe carefully calibrated to communicate social position, personality, and cultural identity. Hamza’s costumes evolve subtly throughout the film, reflecting his rising status within the organization and his deepening immersion in his cover identity. Rehman Dakait’s wardrobe communicates wealth and power while maintaining a connection to the street-level world he controls. The attention to these details may go unnoticed by casual viewers, but it contributes to the overall sense of authenticity that distinguishes the film from its peers.

Soundtrack and Background Score

Shashwat Sachdev’s contribution to Dhurandhar cannot be overstated. His background score is not accompaniment; it is a narrative instrument that carries as much dramatic weight as any performance or visual choice. The score is characterized by a blend of electronic textures, traditional instrumentation, and ambient sound design that creates a sonic identity unique to the film. During tension sequences, the score builds through layers of low-frequency drones and rhythmic pulses that create a physiological response in the listener, raising heart rates and heightening alertness in a way that mirrors the protagonist’s experience. During emotional moments, the score pulls back to spare, almost fragile arrangements that expose the vulnerability beneath the action.

The songs, with lyrics by Irshad Kamil, are integrated into the narrative more organically than is typical for Bollywood films. The title track, which reworks a classic Punjabi song originally composed by Charanjit Ahuja with vocals from Hanumankind and Jasmine Sandlas, establishes a cultural and musical identity for the film that is rooted in the protagonist’s Punjabi heritage while filtered through contemporary sonic production. The choice to base the title track on a classic Punjabi composition is itself thematically resonant, connecting the protagonist to a cultural tradition that his undercover identity requires him to suppress. The music rights for the first installment were acquired by Saregama.

The use of music within the diegetic world of the film, the songs playing on radios, the sounds of the streets, the musical traditions of the community Hamza has infiltrated, creates a sonic landscape that reinforces the cultural specificity of the setting. Dhar and Sachdev understand that music is not just emotional accompaniment; it is cultural infrastructure, and the music that plays within the world of Lyari tells the audience as much about that world as any dialogue or visual detail.

What Sachdev achieves with the background score is particularly noteworthy in how it distinguishes between the film’s two primary worlds. The Indian intelligence sequences are scored with cooler, more electronic textures that suggest institutional precision and emotional distance. The Lyari sequences employ warmer, more organic instrumentation, incorporating elements of South Asian musical traditions that root the sound in the cultural geography of the setting. When the two worlds collide, as they do in scenes where Hamza’s dual existence threatens to collapse, the score merges these distinct sonic palettes into something turbulent and dissonant, mirroring the character’s internal conflict through sound. For a complete song-by-song and score analysis, see our dedicated examination of Dhurandhar’s soundtrack and background score.

The audio launch for the first film took place with considerable fanfare, and the music quickly established itself as one of the year’s most popular soundtracks. But it is the background score, rather than the songs, that truly defines the film’s sonic identity. Sachdev’s ability to create tension through sound, to use silence as effectively as noise, and to modulate the emotional temperature of a scene through subtle shifts in instrumentation and texture makes the score an essential component of the film’s success.

Critical Reception and Audience Response

Dhurandhar’s critical reception was marked by a divided but generally positive response that reflected the film’s own complexity and its refusal to be easily categorized. Several prominent critics awarded the film high ratings, praising the world-building, the ensemble performances, and the ambition of the narrative scope. One major review described it as a film that refuses to be contained by the grammar of a conventional spy thriller, while another characterized it as a power-packed Karachi mafia thriller anchored by Singh’s subdued yet scorching lead performance. The review noted that the immersive world-building and the gritty, violent underworld of Karachi’s Lyari district were brought to life through a narrative structured in multiple chapters, with a runtime that, remarkably for its length, rarely felt overbearing thanks to what was described as stylish, tight storytelling. Ranveer Singh’s performance was singled out repeatedly as a career-best turn that demonstrated previously unseen depths in his range. Akshaye Khanna’s Rehman Dakait was universally praised as one of the most compelling villain performances in recent Bollywood history, with critics noting that the face-off scenes between Singh and Khanna were masterclasses in sustained tension that relied on psychological warfare rather than explosions. The direction was lauded for its ability to sustain tension across an unusually long runtime while maintaining narrative coherence.

The criticism that emerged centered on several areas that highlighted the genuine tensions within the film’s ambitions. Some reviewers felt that the film’s political messaging, particularly its depiction of Indian intelligence operations in Pakistan, crossed the line from entertainment into territory that could be described as nationalistic or propagandistic. One prominent review described it as an ambitious but overstretched and chest-thumping espionage saga that serves political interests while testing endurance. Another characterized it as propaganda in service of a hawkish India, designed to flatter certain political perspectives. Others took a more measured approach, noting that the story was not yet complete and that judgment should be reserved until both parts had been seen. This criticism engaged with the broader question of whether films that draw on real geopolitical conflicts have a responsibility to present balanced perspectives or whether artistic license permits more partisan interpretations. Some critics also focused on the runtime, arguing that while the film’s length was justified by its ambitions, certain passages, particularly in the first half, could have been tightened without sacrificing narrative depth.

The audience response, however, was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Word-of-mouth drove the film to extraordinary commercial performance, with repeat viewings becoming common among a dedicated fanbase that engaged deeply with the film’s layered narrative and numerous plot details. Social media discourse around the film was intense and sustained, with fans debating character motivations, analyzing visual details, and speculating about the second installment. The film became a genuine cultural phenomenon, transcending its genre to become a reference point in broader conversations about Indian cinema, national identity, and the artistic possibilities of commercial filmmaking.

The propaganda debate that surrounded the film deserves careful attention because it touches on fundamental questions about the relationship between popular entertainment and political messaging. Critics who labeled the film as propagandistic argued that its fictional narrative served to legitimize a particular political worldview, that its depiction of Indian intelligence as heroic and its portrayal of Pakistani institutions as corrupt and complicit in terrorism reinforced existing prejudices and contributed to a climate of nationalist fervor. These were serious criticisms, advanced by thoughtful commentators, and they resonated particularly strongly among audiences and critics who were already concerned about the weaponization of popular culture for political ends.

Defenders of the film countered that fiction has always drawn from geopolitical reality, that the film never claims to be documentary, that its characters and events are clearly fictionalized, and that audiences are capable of distinguishing between entertainment and political instruction. They pointed to the film’s nuanced portrayal of its antagonists, who are given motivations and even moments of humanity, as evidence that the film is more complex than its detractors acknowledged. Some argued that the label “propaganda” was being applied selectively, that films from other national cinemas, particularly Hollywood, routinely celebrate their own intelligence agencies and military operations without facing the same level of scrutiny.

The truth, as is often the case with genuinely significant cultural artifacts, lies somewhere between these positions. Dhurandhar is undeniably a film with a political perspective. It is also undeniably a film of considerable artistic accomplishment. The question of whether these two qualities can coexist, and whether artistic merit mitigates or amplifies the impact of political messaging, is not one that a film review can resolve. What can be said with confidence is that the debate itself is a measure of the film’s cultural significance. Films that provoke no discussion are films that do not matter. Dhurandhar matters. The gap between critical reservations and audience enthusiasm, while not unprecedented, was notable in its scale and its persistence. For a full examination of how critics engaged with the film’s political dimensions, see our article on every major Dhurandhar controversy explained.

The film’s cultural footprint extended beyond traditional media criticism into meme culture, fan art, dialogue parodies, and a robust ecosystem of fan-created content that kept the film in the public conversation for months after its initial release. Dialogue references from the film entered everyday speech. The character of Rehman Dakait inspired a wave of fan appreciation for Akshaye Khanna that revitalized public interest in the actor’s career. Rakesh Bedi’s Jameel Jamali became a beloved figure whose scenes were shared and rewatched millions of times across social platforms. The film demonstrated, in a way that few Indian films have managed, the power of deep, character-driven storytelling to create a lasting cultural imprint that extends far beyond the initial theatrical window.

Box Office Performance

The commercial performance of Dhurandhar represents one of the most remarkable box office stories in the history of Indian cinema. The film opened with approximately 28 crore in India Net collections on its first day, a strong but not record-breaking start that reflected both the excitement surrounding the project and the impact of its Adults Only certification, which restricted a portion of the potential audience. The first weekend saw collections build steadily, reaching approximately 106.50 crore, with Sunday representing the highest single day of the opening frame.

What distinguished Dhurandhar’s box office run was not its opening but its extraordinary hold in subsequent weeks. The second weekend delivered approximately 253 crore in weekly collections, actually exceeding the first week’s performance by over twenty percent. This kind of growth from week one to week two is virtually unheard of in Indian cinema and reflects the overwhelming strength of the word-of-mouth response. The second Friday opened at approximately 32.5 crore, higher than the film’s own first day, a phenomenon that occurs only when audience enthusiasm is building rather than declining. The second Saturday surged to approximately 53 crore, and the second Sunday reached approximately 58 crore, numbers that rivaled or exceeded the opening weekend of many standalone blockbusters.

The third week continued to demonstrate remarkable staying power, collecting approximately 172 crore. While this represented a decline from the extraordinary second week, the absolute numbers remained extremely high by any standard. A particularly notable spike occurred on the third Saturday, when collections jumped over fifty percent from the previous day, suggesting that the film was continuing to attract first-time viewers alongside the repeat audience. The third week also saw a significant boost from the Christmas and holiday period, which provided additional screens and show timings.

The film’s week-by-week trajectory tells a story of a commercial phenomenon that defied conventional box office patterns. Most Bollywood films, even successful ones, experience a steep decline after their opening weekend, with second-week collections typically dropping fifty to seventy percent. Dhurandhar not only resisted this pattern but reversed it, posting a second week that was actually larger than the first. This is the hallmark of a film driven by word-of-mouth rather than marketing, by genuine audience enthusiasm rather than opening-weekend hype, and it indicates a depth of audience engagement that no marketing campaign can manufacture.

The film continued to collect meaningful numbers well into its fourth, fifth, and sixth weeks, demonstrating the kind of long-tail performance that characterized pre-digital-era hits but has become increasingly rare in an age of rapid theatrical-to-streaming transitions. The re-release ahead of the sequel injected additional life into the theatrical run, placing the film back in over 1,000 screens and allowing audiences who had missed the initial run, or who wanted to refresh their memory before the second installment, to experience it on the big screen.

The film crossed the 500 crore India Net milestone and ultimately settled at approximately 896 crore in domestic net collections, with a worldwide gross of approximately 1,350 crore. This made it the highest-grossing Hindi film in domestic net collections at the time and one of the top-grossing Indian films of all time. The overseas performance was equally impressive, with collections exceeding 293 crore driven by strong performance in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and parts of Europe. The film’s foreign distributor estimated that the theatrical ban in Gulf countries cost approximately ninety crore in potential overseas earnings, suggesting that the worldwide total could have been even more extraordinary without that restriction.

The film’s digital streaming rights were acquired by Netflix for approximately 85 crore, reflecting the platform’s assessment of the film’s value as a long-form content property. The re-release ahead of the sequel, which placed the film back in over 1,000 screens, generated additional theatrical revenue and served as an effective marketing tool for the second installment. You can track the complete day-wise collection journey interactively to appreciate the full scope of this commercial achievement. For the complete detailed breakdown, see our Dhurandhar Part 1 box office collection analysis.

Why This Film Matters

Dhurandhar matters because it proved something that many in the Indian film industry had either forgotten or never believed: that audiences will sit still for a three-and-a-half-hour spy thriller if the storytelling is genuinely compelling, the characters are genuinely complex, and the world-building is genuinely immersive. In an industry that had been drifting toward shorter runtimes, leaner narratives, and an increasing reliance on star power and spectacle to compensate for thinning scripts, Dhurandhar demonstrated that density is not the enemy of entertainment, that audiences are smarter and more patient than the industry often gives them credit for, and that the reward for trusting your audience is not just critical approval but massive commercial returns.

The film also matters for what it did to the Bollywood spy genre. Before Dhurandhar, the genre was dominated by films that treated espionage as a license for globe-trotting spectacle, where the operative’s cover identity was a fashion statement rather than a source of psychological torment, and where the geopolitical stakes were window dressing for action set pieces. Dhurandhar forced a recalibration. It showed that the spy thriller could be grounded, could be psychologically rich, could treat its violence as consequential, and could engage with real-world geopolitics in a way that, however fictionalized, felt rooted in recognizable stakes. Future films in the genre will be measured against this standard, and most of them will fall short.

Consider the practical implications for the industry. Dhurandhar’s success demonstrated that a film with an Adults Only certificate, a runtime exceeding three hours, an ensemble cast without a traditional romantic subplot, and a narrative structure that demands active audience engagement can not only succeed but dominate the box office in a way that makes family-friendly, star-driven vehicles look modest by comparison. This is a lesson that will reshape production decisions across the industry for years to come. Producers who would have previously insisted on trimming runtime, softening violence, and inserting romantic angles to broaden commercial appeal now have evidence that these compromises are not only unnecessary but potentially counterproductive. The audience that turned Dhurandhar into a phenomenon was an audience that wanted to be challenged, that wanted to be respected, and that was willing to reward filmmakers who trusted them with something substantial.

The film’s impact on Ranveer Singh’s career trajectory is also significant. By demonstrating that he could anchor a film not through charisma and energy but through restraint and interiority, Singh expanded his range in a way that opens new categories of roles for the next phase of his career. The performance argued, convincingly, that Singh is not merely a star but an actor of genuine depth, and that his most interesting work may lie not in the maximalist roles that made him famous but in the minimalist ones that require him to do less and reveal more.

There is also the question of what Dhurandhar means for the two-part film model in Indian cinema. The Baahubali series had previously demonstrated that Indian audiences would embrace a two-part structure if the storytelling justified it. Dhurandhar pushed this model further by delivering a first installment that, while incomplete as a standalone narrative, was so satisfying as an experience that audiences were not merely willing but eager to return for the second half. The fact that the sequel went on to surpass the original’s lifetime gross within eleven days of release suggests that the two-part model, executed with this level of craft and commitment, does not divide an audience; it multiplies it. Each installment builds anticipation for the next, and the combined commercial performance of the two films creates a franchise value that exceeds what any single film could have achieved.

On a broader cultural level, Dhurandhar became a phenomenon that transcended its genre. It was discussed not just as a film but as a cultural event, a lightning rod for debates about patriotism, propaganda, artistic freedom, and the responsibility of popular cinema in a politically charged environment. Regardless of where one falls on these questions, the fact that a commercial action film provoked this level of sustained intellectual engagement is itself remarkable, and it reflects the film’s achievement in creating a work that operates on multiple levels simultaneously.

The franchise as a whole, combining Part 1 and its even more commercially dominant sequel, has crossed 2,200 crore in worldwide gross, establishing itself as the most commercially successful franchise in Bollywood history and placing both installments among the top five highest-grossing Indian films of all time. To compare Dhurandhar’s complete box office run against other Indian blockbusters, the numbers tell a story that the industry cannot afford to ignore. For a catalogue of every record the franchise has broken, see our compilation of every Dhurandhar franchise record.

Dhurandhar is not a perfect film. Its length will test some viewers. Its political perspective will alienate others. Its violence will disturb many. But it is a film that commits fully to its vision, that refuses to condescend to its audience, and that achieves a level of ambition and execution that Indian commercial cinema rarely attempts. It is the film that proved Bollywood could do this, and in doing so, it raised the bar for everything that comes after. For the complete guide to both films and everything surrounding them, see our comprehensive Dhurandhar franchise guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Dhurandhar about and what is the basic plot?

Dhurandhar is a spy action thriller that follows an undercover Indian intelligence agent who infiltrates the criminal underworld of Karachi’s Lyari district under the alias Hamza Ali Mazari. The film depicts the agent’s mission to dismantle a terror network with connections to intelligence agencies, political power brokers, and organized crime syndicates. The story draws loose inspiration from real geopolitical events in South Asia, including hijackings, parliamentary attacks, and the nexus between organized crime and state-sponsored terrorism. The narrative is structured in chapters that build a complex web of allegiances and betrayals across a timeline spanning several years, with this first installment establishing the world, the characters, and the stakes before a cliffhanger ending that sets up the second part.

Q: Who plays the lead role in Dhurandhar and who is his character?

Ranveer Singh plays the lead role, portraying a character who operates under the alias Hamza Ali Mazari. His real identity is Jaskirat Singh Rangi, a young man from Pathankot whose personal tragedy leads to his recruitment by Indian intelligence for a covert operation. Singh’s performance is widely regarded as the most restrained and mature work of his career, requiring him to suppress his natural charisma and energy in favor of a watchful, controlled presence that communicates the psychological toll of living under a false identity in extremely dangerous circumstances.

Q: Is Dhurandhar based on a true story?

Dhurandhar is a work of fiction that draws loose inspiration from multiple real events and geopolitical dynamics in South Asia. The film opens with a disclaimer stating it represents fiction, though it incorporates fictionalized versions of events including the IC-814 hijacking, the Indian Parliament attack, and the nexus between organized crime networks and intelligence operations. Characters are inspired by, but not direct depictions of, real individuals. The film takes significant creative liberties with timelines, events, and relationships to serve its narrative purposes.

Q: How long is Dhurandhar Part 1 and is the runtime justified?

The first installment runs 214 minutes, making it one of the longest Indian theatrical releases in recent memory. Whether the runtime is justified depends on what kind of viewing experience one values. For audiences who appreciate detailed world-building, slow-burn character development, and a narrative that trusts the viewer to engage with complexity, the length is well-used and the film rarely feels padded. For viewers expecting a conventional action thriller with lean pacing, the first half may test patience. The chapter structure helps by providing natural breathing points between narrative movements.

Q: Why did Dhurandhar get an Adults Only certificate from the CBFC?

The Central Board of Film Certification awarded Dhurandhar an A (Adults Only) certificate due to its sustained and graphic violence, including visceral hand-to-hand combat, gunfights with realistic consequences, and sequences depicting the brutality of the criminal underworld. Some violent visuals and profanities were censored before the certificate was issued. The A certificate restricted the film’s potential audience but arguably enhanced its credibility among adult viewers seeking a mature, uncompromising thriller experience.

Q: Who is Rehman Dakait and why is Akshaye Khanna’s performance so praised?

Rehman Dakait is the primary antagonist of the first installment, the king of Lyari’s criminal underworld whose intelligence and charisma are matched only by his capacity for extreme violence. Akshaye Khanna’s performance has been universally praised because he plays the character not as a one-dimensional villain but as a fully realized human being with genuine charm, strategic intelligence, and a warped sense of loyalty to his community. The tension between Rehman and Hamza drives the film’s central dramatic engine, and the scenes they share together are masterclasses in sustained psychological tension.

Q: What real events inspired the plot of Dhurandhar?

The film draws loosely from several real events: the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, during which imprisoned terrorists were released in exchange for hostages; the attack on the Indian Parliament; the Mumbai terrorist attacks; and the dynamics of organized crime networks in Karachi, particularly in the Lyari district. The film also references real intelligence operations and the geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan. All events are fictionalized and reimagined to serve the film’s narrative purposes.

Q: How does Dhurandhar compare to other Bollywood spy films?

Dhurandhar distinguishes itself from predecessors in the genre through its commitment to world-building, character depth, and consequence-driven violence. Where films in the spy genre have typically treated espionage as a vehicle for glamorous international locations and CGI-enhanced action sequences, Dhurandhar focuses on the psychological and moral cost of undercover work. The film’s Karachi setting is fully realized rather than merely decorative, its protagonist operates through intelligence and survival instinct rather than superhuman abilities, and its action sequences emphasize physical realism over choreographic spectacle.

Q: Why was Dhurandhar banned in Gulf countries?

The film was banned from theatrical release in several Gulf Cooperation Council countries due to content that was deemed offensive or politically sensitive in the regional context. The ban restricted the film’s overseas earning potential significantly, with the foreign distributor estimating that the theatrical prohibition in Gulf markets cost approximately ninety crore in potential revenue. Despite the ban, the film performed exceptionally well in other international markets including North America, Europe, and Australia.

Q: What was the Baloch controversy surrounding Dhurandhar?

Members of the Baloch community raised objections to the film’s portrayal of Baloch characters, which they felt was defamatory. A legal notice was sent to the filmmakers regarding specific dialogue that was considered offensive to the community. In response, the distributors replaced the Digital Cinema Package across Indian theaters with an altered version that muted certain words. This controversy highlighted the tensions between creative license and the sensitivities of communities depicted in fictional narratives.

Q: How much did Dhurandhar collect at the box office worldwide?

Dhurandhar collected approximately 896 crore in India Net collections and approximately 293 crore in overseas gross, for a worldwide total of approximately 1,350 crore. The film was classified as an All Time Blockbuster. Its domestic collections made it the highest-grossing Hindi film in Net collections at the time of its release, and its worldwide gross placed it among the top-grossing Indian films in history.

Q: Was Dhurandhar originally planned as two parts?

No. Dhurandhar was initially conceived as a single film. During production, approximately seven hours of footage were shot, and during post-production the filmmakers recognized that the story’s scope and complexity could not be compressed into a standard runtime without sacrificing character development and narrative density. The decision to split the project into two parts was made during post-production, with both installments having been shot concurrently as a single creative endeavor.

Q: Who directed Dhurandhar and what are his previous films?

Aditya Dhar wrote and directed Dhurandhar. His previous feature film was Uri: The Surgical Strike, a military action film that became one of the most commercially successful Indian films of its year and established Dhar as a filmmaker capable of handling large-scale action narratives with precision and emotional engagement. The Dhurandhar duology represents a massive leap in scale and ambition from his debut, demonstrating significant growth in his ability to manage complex ensemble narratives and extended runtimes.

Q: What is the significance of the post-credits scene in Dhurandhar Part 1?

The post-credits scene revealed the title and release window for the second installment, confirming the two-part structure of the saga. The scene functions both as a narrative teaser, offering glimpses of the escalated conflict that will drive the sequel, and as a commercial promise, reassuring the audience that the story’s unresolved threads will be addressed. The footage used in this scene was later repurposed, with modifications, for the official teaser of the sequel.

Q: How is the music in Dhurandhar and who composed the score?

The music was composed by Shashwat Sachdev, who also scored Uri: The Surgical Strike. The soundtrack, with lyrics by Irshad Kamil, includes a title track that reworks a classic Punjabi song with contemporary vocals. The background score is widely considered one of the film’s greatest assets, employing a blend of electronic textures and traditional instrumentation that creates tension, emotional depth, and a sonic identity unique to the franchise. The music rights for the first installment were held by Saregama.

Q: Is Dhurandhar available to watch on any streaming platform?

The digital streaming rights for the first installment were acquired by Netflix for approximately 85 crore. The film became available on the platform following its theatrical run, allowing viewers who missed the theatrical release or who wish to revisit the film before watching the sequel to access it from home.

Q: What makes Dhurandhar different from Uri: The Surgical Strike?

While both films are directed by Aditya Dhar and deal with national security themes, they differ significantly in scope, structure, and tone. Uri is a lean, focused military action film built around a single operation with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Dhurandhar is a sprawling espionage epic that spans years, involves dozens of characters across multiple power structures, and prioritizes world-building and psychological complexity over linear momentum. Uri is a sprint; Dhurandhar is a marathon, and the differences in pacing, character depth, and narrative ambition reflect Dhar’s growth as a filmmaker.

Q: Why is Ranveer Singh’s performance in Dhurandhar considered his best?

Critics and audiences have praised Singh’s performance as his most mature and controlled work because it represents a fundamental departure from the extroverted energy that defined his previous roles. Playing a character who must suppress all visible emotion to survive, Singh demonstrates a capacity for interiority and physical restraint that his earlier filmography only hinted at. The performance relies on subtlety, on what is withheld rather than expressed, and the moments of vulnerability that occasionally surface are all the more powerful for their rarity.

Q: What is Operation Dhurandhar in the film?

Operation Dhurandhar is the covert counter-terrorism operation that serves as the narrative spine of both installments. Conceived and authorized in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on Indian soil, the operation involves embedding an undercover agent deep within the criminal and political power structures of Karachi to gather intelligence, disrupt terror networks, and dismantle the nexus between organized crime and state-sponsored terrorism. The operation is authorized through channels that allow for plausible deniability, meaning that the agent operating in the field does so without any official acknowledgment or protection from the government he serves.

Q: How did Dhurandhar perform in North America?

The film performed exceptionally well in North America, crossing over two million dollars in its opening weekend and continuing to accumulate strong collections throughout its theatrical run. North America was the film’s strongest overseas territory, driven by a combination of the Indian diaspora audience and crossover interest from broader action film enthusiasts. The film’s performance in the region contributed significantly to its overseas total of approximately 293 crore.

Q: Will there be a Dhurandhar Part 3?

As of the current information, the Dhurandhar saga was designed as a duology, with the second installment serving as the final chapter of the planned two-part narrative. However, the post-credits scene of the second film has generated significant speculation among fans about potential spin-offs or extensions of the franchise universe. Whether the filmmakers choose to expand beyond the original two-part plan remains to be seen.

Q: What is the connection between the Dhurandhar films and the film Haq?

In a cameo appearance in the second installment, Yami Gautam briefly appears as a character named Shazia Bano, a nurse who participates in a mission. This character shares a name with the role Gautam plays in the film Haq, directed by Suparn S Varma. The director of Haq confirmed that Dhar included the cameo as a deliberate crossover after watching a cut of Haq, suggesting an affectionate creative connection between the two projects rather than a formal shared universe.

Q: How does the film handle its depiction of Pakistan and Pakistani characters?

The film’s depiction of Pakistan and its characters has been one of the most debated aspects of the franchise. Dhurandhar portrays Karachi, particularly the Lyari district, with considerable detail and texture, creating a fully realized world that is neither cartoonishly evil nor simplistically drawn. Individual Pakistani characters are given motivations, relationships, and even moments of genuine humanity. However, the institutional depiction, particularly of intelligence agencies and military structures, is unambiguously hostile, framing them as complicit in terrorism and organized crime. This combination of nuanced individual characterization and polarized institutional portrayal has fueled debates about whether the film achieves complexity or merely disguises a simplistic worldview with surface-level sophistication.

Q: What were the major filming locations used in Dhurandhar?

Principal photography took place across a remarkably wide range of locations in India and abroad. Key filming locations included Punjab, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and various sites across Mumbai, including Filmistan Studios and Madh Island. Significant portions of the film were shot in Thailand, which served as a stand-in for Pakistani locations, particularly the Lyari district of Karachi. Additional filming took place at The Lawrence School in Kasauli, Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake, and Amritsar’s Lal Kothi. The production transformed these diverse locations into a cohesive visual world through meticulous production design and digital enhancement.

Q: How does the violence in Dhurandhar compare to other Bollywood films?

The violence in Dhurandhar is significantly more graphic and sustained than what audiences typically encounter in mainstream Bollywood cinema, which is why the film received an Adults Only certificate from the CBFC. The key difference is not merely the quantity of violence but its quality and intent. Where most Bollywood action films present violence as spectacle that exists outside the laws of physics and consequences, Dhurandhar stages its combat with an emphasis on physical realism, pain, and lasting damage. Characters who are hit show the effects; fights are exhausting and sloppy rather than choreographed and graceful; and the emotional aftermath of violent encounters is depicted rather than glossed over. This approach makes the violence harder to watch but dramatically more effective, ensuring that every act of physical harm carries narrative and emotional weight.

Q: What role does Rakesh Bedi play and why did audiences love his character?

Rakesh Bedi plays Jameel Jamali, a member of the Lyari criminal ecosystem who became one of the film’s most beloved characters among audiences. The character provides moments of warmth, humor, and unexpected humanity within a narrative otherwise dominated by tension and violence. Bedi’s performance struck a chord because it demonstrated the film’s understanding that even within the darkest environments, human beings find ways to laugh, to care for one another, and to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Jameel Jamali became a social media phenomenon, with his scenes among the most shared and rewatched content from the film.

Q: How did the re-release of Dhurandhar Part 1 perform before Part 2’s release?

The first installment was re-released in Indian theaters and overseas markets in March, approximately two weeks before the sequel’s premiere. The re-release took place across more than 1,000 screens worldwide, allowing audiences to revisit the first installment in theaters and ensuring that the narrative of both films was fresh in viewers’ minds. The re-release generated additional theatrical revenue and served as an effective marketing strategy for the sequel, building excitement and ensuring that the story’s complex threads were accessible to audiences heading into the second part. The strategy was validated by the sequel’s extraordinary opening, which suggested that a substantial portion of its audience arrived primed by a recent theatrical viewing of the original.

Q: What is the Dhurandhar franchise’s total worldwide gross across both films?

Combining both installments, the Dhurandhar franchise has crossed approximately 2,200 crore in worldwide gross collections, making it the most commercially successful franchise in Bollywood history. The first installment contributed approximately 1,350 crore, while the second installment surpassed the first’s lifetime total within eleven days of release and continues to accumulate collections. The franchise is also notable for being the only one in Indian cinema where both installments have individually crossed the 1,000 crore worldwide mark, placing both films among the top five highest-grossing Indian films of all time.

Q: What makes the chapter structure of Dhurandhar different from a conventional Bollywood narrative?

Unlike most Bollywood films, which follow a linear three-act structure with clearly defined interval points, Dhurandhar organizes its narrative into distinct chapters, each with its own title, tonal identity, and dramatic focus. This approach, more commonly associated with novelistic storytelling or the work of directors like Quentin Tarantino and Park Chan-wook, allows Dhar to shift perspectives, jump between timelines, and modulate pacing in ways that a conventional linear structure would not permit. Each chapter functions almost as a self-contained narrative unit while contributing to the larger arc, giving the audience natural pause points that prevent the 214-minute runtime from feeling overwhelming. The chapter structure also allows the film to delay certain revelations strategically, building suspense not just through what happens but through the order in which information is disclosed to the audience.

Q: How does Dhurandhar depict the relationship between organized crime and intelligence agencies?

One of the film’s central preoccupations is the entanglement between organized crime networks and state intelligence apparatus, a dynamic that the film explores from multiple angles. The criminal syndicates of Lyari are not shown as operating in isolation; they exist within a larger ecosystem that includes intelligence officers, military personnel, political figures, and law enforcement, all of whom use the criminal networks to advance their own agendas while the criminals, in turn, leverage their connections to state power for protection and operational freedom. Hamza’s mission depends on exploiting this very nexus, using the channels that connect crime and intelligence to gain access to targets that would otherwise be unreachable. The film argues that in the shadowy world between nations, the line separating spies from criminals is not a wall but a revolving door, and that those who operate in this space are often indistinguishable from one another regardless of which side they nominally serve.