Review of Dhurandhar – 2 – The Revenge
Unlike Bahubali-2, the audience were
not made to wait for long for Dhurandhar -2, which was released within three months
after the first part, and hence there is continuity and fresh recall of the
Dhurandhar-1
Dhurandhar – 2 opens tracing back
the younger days of Hamza (Jaskirat Singh Rangi) back in Punjab, with an elaborate
and gruesome violence scene of the hacking of dozens of people in a private
party and subsequent arrest of Hamza and his being drawn into being trained as an
Indian agent in barter to an honourable death in enemy country rather than going
to the gallows in an Indian jail.
Then the scene shifts to the last
journey of Rehman dacoit and Hamza's efforts to make Uzair Baloch believe that
he is the heir apparent of Lyari and make him kill Arshad Pappu by beheading him in public. After Uzair gets arrested, Hamza takes over
Lyari and impresses Major Iqbal to such an extent that he takes him to Bade sahed,
who becomes a bedridden vegetable but still plots terrorist attacks in India.
Compared to the first part, the
second part has more direct references to many incidents that have happened, like
fake Indian currency making in Pakisthan, the pumping of thousands of crores to
manipulate Indian general elections, plans to distribute it in UP through Atif
Ahmed (Atiq Ahmed), Modi winning general elections, demonitisation, pumping in
drugs in Punjab and making Punjab youth drug addicts, and the elimination of
Atif Ahmed and all the terrorist attacks including the infamous Mumbai attack.
The second part starts where it
was left in the first part, as far as extreme and brutal violence is concerned,
beheading, dismembering parts of the body, punching eyes, pumping bullets in
the buttocks, and the most direct abusive and curse words. This malady,
which was unique to South Indian movies, has spread to Hindi movies also, and
we definitely need relief from it. After
seeing the violent scenes and abusive language, I really wonder what purpose
our Censor Board serves except to trouble producers of movies like Jana
Nayagan for political reasons. These scenes are difficult to digest, even to
ardent action movie fans, let alone for a female and family audience. Someone
needs to counsel our directors that an action scene does not mean hacking goons
by dozens. Our directors need to watch
Jackie Chan action movies before directing action scenes.
As far as acting goes, unlike
Bahubali-2, Dhurandhar–2 has to make up for the absence of Rehman Dacoit's
role, brilliantly played by Akshey Khanna; it's like not having Katappa in
Bahubali-2. In his absence, Ranveer has to shoulder heavy
responsibility, and he has not disappointed.
He is intense in action scenes, competent in emotional scenes, and
expresses himself well through intense looks when he is quiet. Arjun Ramphal has a bigger role in his part,
and he did very well. Mahadevan, Rakesh
Bedi, Sara and Sanjay Dutt were as good as they were in the first part.
All praise is due to Aditya Dhar,
writer, director and co-producer, for the way he handled a controversial subject
without any fear. There are direct references
to real-life characters, political bigwigs like Pakistani terrorists, Pakistan ISI,
Pakistani politicians, including Nawaz Shariff, Indian National Security
Advisor, drug lords etc. We used to watch
such movies in Hollywood about Heads of State, the plot to overthrow them, the assassination
bids etc. Good that Part – 1 has broken all box office
records in Hindi, and part-2 is on its way to do so
For reasons best known to them,
the people with left-leaning views are up in arms criticising the movie that it
is a propaganda movie. Every terrorist attack in India referred to in
the movie has actually happened. The terrorist camps across the border and
their infiltration into India to carry out attacks, including the Mumbai attack,
were facts, and if they are shown and made a backdrop for a movie and woven a
story around, how does it become a propaganda movie? The very fact that the first part has broken
all records shows that the audience has accepted it and who cares about validating
from the left-wingers.
Box Office: As expected,
Dhurandhar – 2 has opened to a record advance booking and reported to have made
Rs. 150 crores in the very first day and is living up to the hype created and
surely march towards Rs. 1000 crores mark.
I give 4/5 and strongly recommend
it if you can stomach extreme violence and have patience to sit through for close
to four hours.
S. Prabhakar
20.3.2026
