Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar pushes a bigoted vision, gaslighting the audience into accepting it as entertainment | Bollywood News
Barely five minutes into Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, the shape of the next three and half hours reveals itself. The year is 1999, and the Kandahar hijacking has turned a plane into a pressure chamber. Inside, Ajay Sanyal (R Madhavan), IB Chief, tries to kindle resolve. He calls out, “Bharat Mata ki…”, expecting the hostages to supply the familiar reply. The silence that follows is heavy, almost accusatory. He repeats himself. The silence only thickens. Behind him, a Pakistani hijacker raises his gun and laughs at the spectacle of a man whose authority has collapsed in real time. He taunts him with, “You Hindus are so cowardly.” The line is baffling, but it clarifies what Dhar is pursuing. He seeks agitation and friction. He desires deliberate unsettling of old sediment. He aims to trigger, to escalate, to divide. And he folds this intent into the broad sweep of a crime epic, deploying its gore and earthiness to mask the bigotry. These two impulses, political incitement and operatic storytelling, should nullify each other. Instead, he binds them, …
