Dhurandhar

I went to watch the movie after much hype induced due to its huge positive feedback but also supplemented more by the negative ones. I had a hunch that this movie will be different as I found the Director's last movie being a Genre redefining stylized Military movie riding on some techno thumping soundtrack. If was a mix and mash of pop Military action. Dhurandhar got dissolved over a weeks' time in the membranes. It evoked a recall value even though there was a thought pulling me aside and telling me it was just an ok movie. But what are the barometers which define it as ok. 

The comparison was with earlier movies produced by the industry (YRF movies) which were weak contextualized copies or filtered down versions of the Western stylized spy movies like James Bond. They also had their own audience who were ok with its universal good vs bad conflict without thinking much even when it has storylines where two arch nemesis agencies RAW and ISI collaborated to defeat a bigger enemy who was essentially a rogue agent who had gone astray. It would have still been an ok movie if it had followed the same trope, along with the real-life incidents it interspersed with. But it went bit different. 

Dhurandhar infused certain rawness and ruggedness associated with a life of a spy trying to make his way through the animal kingdom of the Underworld - Terror nexus. It showed that you can't reach to the top without actually starting right at the bottom of the pecking order, clawing your way up by intensely faking loyalty and still might get defeated or found out on the way. Espionage is a process, sowing oneself deep in the enemy network is a painstaking effort where confidence to endure is tested at each stage. As the older spook tells Hamza " I had to wait tables and wash dishes for 6 odd years and then slowly built a network". A covert operation is probable only if the land is ploughed and ready for seeds to be sown. Hamza got sown in the network only because Alam had ploughed the land for years to make it ready and yet it was not easy for the former at first go. It also showed the nexus and gulf between the hardened but lowly crime gangs of Lyari and politicians in the larger Karachi landscape. Even an underworld gang lord like Rehman or Uzair had to tow in line with low life political intermediary like Jameel.  Even if the former had to reach right at the top (read Bhutto-Zardari), likes of Jameel fiercely guarded those pathways. And when Rehman tried to trespass, it invited unscrupulousness of Jameel who bought in Rehman Choudhary, the bad ass cop to defang Rehman. The hardcore and scornful Cop is the only one who seems to be aligned with the audience in it common purpose to see the enemy defeated, in this case it being the Rehman/Uzair gangs of Lyari.  But the cop is also painted as a person of mixed intention when it becomes apparent that his allegiances are also tied to one in the top who is yet to be names. Within the nexus you have the ideologically bent hard core religious extremist led by the wily ISI Major Iqbal. It shows that how the state or non-state of Pakistan decentralizes powers in the hand of deranged actors like Iqbal who will go to any means close the loop between the jihadi terrorist and the underworld to carry out violent terror attacks. The torture scene of a spy may have been hard for the eyes, but it symbolized the visceral hate against India that is enmeshed in the minds of certain agencies and groups across the border. The assembly of the entire Terror-Underworld gang including the financers Khannani brothers, the religious extremists during the 26/11 scene where Hamza finds himself unwittingly in middles of the "feast of the Jackals", triggered a fire of vengeance which had been slowly building as per plan till now. The Politician's daughter who Hamza courts becomes an innocent pawn in the act of retribution indicating how even people who have nothing to do with crime get drawn into the schemes unknowingly.

It almost fell like the character of Ajay Sanyal was Ajit Doval by exterior but actually Aditya Dhar by intention. It was the Director's way of telling how things should have played out even if there might be iota of truth in the Black Ops Spy training as mentioned in few scenes of the movie and backstory of Hamza which is waiting to be unraveled. The pain and agony of Sanyal is the Director's reaction as much as it is the audience emotions as well. One could see the pattern in the recent YRY spy verse (hate the aping, Marvel Universe!!), where movies barring Pathan - which was successful more due to the charisma of the comeback start SRK - none of the movies have worked out well. It also signifies the changing mindset of the audience who are much more exposed to the current affairs thanks to X, Facebook and Instagram, feel disconnected from the make-believe world which the earlier spy movies propagated. In the past there were movies like the well-made "D Day", relatively successful "Baby" & Phantom which ventured into more real and hard-hitting spy genre, but those were still the early days, and the likes of "Tiger" franchise made hay.  These are the times where Pakistan and its delusional narrative is laid bare. Its policy of state sponsored terrorism to counter India seems very visible under the thin linen of Terror-denial which Pakistani establishment again and again voices out. Hence audience is more receptive of a narrative where calling a spade a spade makes more sense rather than being wishful and aspirational about harmony. 

Dhurandhar has aptly packaged this narrative well by incorporating the composite elements which create the mindset of the terror sympathizers along with dollops of fiction , a bevy of smart hard-hitting minor characters who have a screen presence of their own , aspects of Shakespearean betrayal with an uplifting and reverberating music which make alive each and every scene and character keeping the tempo of the movie obstacle free . And finally, the unrequired hate for India in the key negative characters which makes the purpose of likes of Hamza, Sanyal and Alam not only theirs but also of each Indian, who are ready to wreck spite with extreme spite which will be played in the upcoming part.