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'The Voice of Hind Rajab' Censored in India Amid Fears Theatrical Release 'Would Break Up the India-Israel Relationship' (EXCLUSIVE) variety.com/2026/film/glob…

🚨🚨My Critical Take on #Dhurandar🚨🚨 As an avid cinephile, I like watching movies for what they are, not for what they are weaponised to become. And on that front, let me say this straight: #Dhurandar is a tight-paced, adrenaline-pumping espionage thriller that keeps you perched on the edge for all of its exhausting 212 min run time. I was ready to forget it the very moment I stepped out of the screening hall still enjoying the cinematic experience, but I couldn't remain insulated from the chatter on social media, hence this elaborate review. I simply refused to engage with “the politics” it pushes because I fundamentally disagree with it, because it is nothing short of plain, unfiltered propaganda. I’ve tried participating in spaces, in discussions, trying to bust the myths floating around, myths that seem to give a euphoric, misplaced high to the sanghis going ga-ga over the #NewIndia chest-thumping. This new sub-genre of hyper-masculinity, toxic aggression, loud bravado, and performative jingoism is the potent cocktail being served. By all means, go watch it as a high-paced action thriller, but for the love of cinema, stop deriving your politics, history, geography, and moral compass from a movie where the director and writer have taken immense creative liberties and twisted facts to present what the current breed lauds. What Works And Works Really Well The film’s strongest muscle is its cast. The stellar ensemble moulds itself beautifully into the texture of the world, I loved the wide camera expanse to the rugged terrains of 'Balochistan', there is not a line out of place, not a scene that feels like excess fat. I absolutely loved the Godfather-esque old-world charm of the makeshift “Layri Town,” somewhere in a stylised Karachi, a smoky, decayed, greenish grey dirty universe built with surprising conviction. Ranveer’s Hamza Ali Mazari is buff, restrained, and simmering. But the real star for me was Khanna’s Rehman Dakait, frail, cunning, devilish, the kind of villain who slithers rather than storms. And of course, the car-bonnet-throning SP Aslam Chaudhary (Dutt): quirky lines, swagger-heavy entry, and pure crowd-pleasing charisma. The BGM, an understated mashup of 80s-90s Bollywood pop, stitches itself into the narrative, lifting the experience without overplaying its hand. Many a times I found my ears identifying the music as my brain was processing the dialogues completing the cinema experience. If I had to categorise it honestly, I would call it a fictionalised layering of communal identities, corruption, and constantly shifting local political alliances, fictionalised but made to believe real using props and cutting from real-incidents and personalities. The film does expose the grim underbelly of fake currency, arms deals, and gangs acting as brokers between ISI operatives and Baloch rebels showing the full expanse of terrorist network.... the film positions corruption, crime and currency racket not just as plot points but as ideological scaffolding, subtly priming the audience for a particular political interpretation rather than simply telling a story... reminded me of #Lucifer (Mohanlal-Prithviraj 2025 Movie). But the main difference being, if Lucifer uses politics to tell a story, Dhurandar uses a story to tell its politics. No wonder it seems to have triggered anti-Pakistan sentiment and allegedly led to bans across the GCC. The film knows exactly which buttons to push, and it pushes them hard. Where the Film Slips: The Political Engineering There were portions that felt deliberately crafted to plug gaps in the lack of strategy or inaction shown in real historical events, almost as if rewriting memory to give the NSA chief undue credit. The film repackages mercenaries being drawn from “broken men of 2002” as some noble nationalistic innovation. Conveniently, every failure is heaped upon an “ineffective government of the past”, a thinly veiled jab at Congress, when the reality is far more complex. The opening sequence with IC-814 is the most laughable revisionist moment. That hijacking took place under the very NDA government and Bajpai's PMship, the film is trying to glorify the misgivings. A tense 7-day standoff ended with the release of three terrorists in exchange for safely rescuing passengers and crew: a bitter, complicated episode in India’s counter-terror history. Even then, Congress, though in opposition, put national unity above party lines. The party has always advocated a firm stance against terrorism, and the incident itself taught the country the importance of robust strategies, something the film conveniently ignores in its attempt to paint a skewed narrative. Corruption, Crime & the Currency Racket Funding the terror network ironically happens in dollars. But the subplot involving currency templates being traded in the shadows feels less like world-building and more like a carefully planted narrative device. It conveniently legitimises the fake currency racket angle, almost retrofitting real political developments into the film’s fictional universe. One can’t help but sense a deliberate attempt to create a cinematic pretext for demonetisation-style rhetoric or, worse, to lay the groundwork for something equally “surgical” in the franchise’s next instalment, little too on-the-nose to dismiss as mere coincidence to be time with elections next year. The 26/11 Audio Clips: A Line That Should Never Have Been Crossed What unsettled me deeply, as it did the film’s own protagonist, was the use of real audio clips from the traumatic 26/11 attacks. It felt exploitative, diminishing the actual national response. Under Dr. Manmohan Singh’s leadership, the UPA government handled that nightmare with restraint and coordinated firmness. NSG commandos, MARCOS, the Army, Mumbai Police, all fought for days to end the siege. The aftermath led to the NIA, strengthened coastal security, and sustained diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. None of this finds space in the film. Instead, it abruptly pivots to a fictionalised plot about a planned 15th August attack, thankfully one that isn't inspired from a real-life event or not sure will be served in the next part, risking the dangerous conflation of fact and fabrication. But Dhurandar reduces this entire national pain into a convenient narrative prop. Like many critics I too question whether this is the film’s most ethically questionable choice? The Most Disturbing Layer: 2002 as Origin Story The insinuation that men broken by the 2002 violence were remoulded as mercenaries is deeply unsettling. Thankfully there were no direct religious references, at least none deliberate, and even without explicit religious markers, the deliberate framing of characters, geographies, and identities nudges the viewer toward a biased, misleading understanding. Without naming the incident directly, the film almost writes off the horror of the pogrom in the last scenes. It manufactures a justification: broken men turned into killing machines, now decorated as 'national assets'.... The film even distils this warped logic into a single line that rings uncomfortably: "Ghayal Hoon isliye Ghatak Hoon" or something like that And then comes the line that sums up the film’s ideological project: “Yeh naya Hindustan hai, ghar mein ghusega bhi, marega bhi.” Is this justifiable? Is this who we want to become? Is a cinematic high worth the moral decay it normalises? In Conclusion Watch Dhurandar as cinema. Enjoy the craft, the pace, the sleek action, the atmospheric world-building. But refuse to let it tell you how to think, who to hate, what to remember, and which history to discard. Some films hold a mirror. Dhurandar holds a magnifying glass, distorting everything it touches. Go for the thrill. Reject the propaganda. And keep your politics where they belong, in reality, not in a screenplay. Unfortunately, some showed spine, only quickly to backtrack later as an afterthought. 👇