24 frames per second

Here be spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Somewhere in the middle of Dhurandhar comes a sequence that is as chilling as it is affecting, and is emblematic of what the film offers. An assortment of characters are seated in a room in Karachi, watching the coverage of a terror attack. There’s a fellow from the ISI named Iqbal, a financier named Khanani who manages the funding and is politically connected, a Baloch gangster named Rahman Dakait who supplies the weaponry…

By this point, the film has already laid out the mechanics: the weapons have to be procured through unofficial channels, in a manner that allows the nation to disavow any knowledge or responsibility for the attack. Hence the use of Rahman, who happens to hail from a region that the Pakistani state is already at war with. He in turn gets them from a warlord in Balochistan who is unaware of his motives. Why does he do this? He wants to transition from crime to politics, and becoming the armourer for these operations gives him a foothold there. But doing so would piss off the local politico Jameel, with whom he has enjoyed a symbiotic, if fractious relationship so far. Jameel therefore would have to bring in a force to neutralize Rahman…

This might be the single biggest reason to recommend Dhurandhar. The film is set almost entirely in Pakistan, and specifically in Lyari, a crime-ridden area of Karachi that even the police are afraid to enter. But rather than populate this world with a uniform, unidimensional array of India-hating individuals with a single agenda, you seee a whole ecosystem. These characters all have their own thing going on, and the film is as much about the way these forces interact as it is about…

… the Indian spy who has infiltrated Rahman’s criminal organization, and observes the terror attack playing out on TV in muted horror while the ones around him cheer like it’s a T20 match and someone just launched the ball into the stands. The scene ends with the transcript of a conversation appearing over a red screen, while the actual recording plays in the background. By the end of it, our horror matches his.

The placement of this scene is interesting. So immersive is the film in the world this man has entered, that you start to focus solely on how these characters relate to each other, and not so much on the bigger picture. And to be fair, so involved is he in the goings-on that you wonder if that is the case with him as well. This moment is a brutal reminder of why he is here, and also of how powerless he actually might feel, given the forces he is up against. This isn’t a film where a man (with a codename that belongs in a zoo rather than the spy business, as The Family Man reminds us) bulldozes his way through a mass of assorted baddies — this is a blood-soaked chess game, where toppling a single piece requires moves to be made well in advance.

For such a gritty slow-burner, it is surprising how energetic the filmmaking style itself is. Lokesh Kanakaraj’s Vikram comes to mind — rap and techno and period pop jostle for space on the soundtrack, the weaponry is plentiful to the point of being almost fetishized… It theoretically ought to be distracting, but somehow isn’t.

Even with the running time, there isn’t enough to give every character multiple shades, so the film relies on casting, and a few important moments to convey what it needs to. The Indian spymaster (Madhavan in full Ajit Doval get-up), for instance, gets a splendid moment on a hijacked plane right at the beginning, where rage seethes from him so palpably that it might vaporize his make-up. Everything you need to know about his approach is what you expect will follow as a visceral reaction to that moment. The ISI chief (Arjun Rampal, with teeth so bad, they look like he’s been chewing on too much scenery) has a somewhat unidimensional presence, with just a torture scene to announce himself. So it is with Sanjay Dutt, who plays a supercop.

A few other characters get more screen time. Ranveer Singh’s performance is beautifully calibrated: he starts off being a mute, hulking presence in a strange and violent world, and as he starts to find his feet, you start to see aspects of an apex predator emerge. Rakesh Bedi plays the local politician Jameel, and gets the pettiness and the double-dealing aspects gloriously right. Sara Arjun (last seen as the young Nandini in Ponniyin Selvan) gets little to do, except for one crucial exchange where you see her show the potential to become something a lot more interesting.

And occupying the centre of the proceedings is Akshaye Khanna, who plays Rahman Dakait with equal parts charisma, feral rage, and lupine cunning. This might just be the performance of the year from a mainstream actor.

Not everything works, though. Some of the camerawork and editing in the action sequences is a bit too choppy — I didn’t feel immersed in the action, just nauseous. With the characters, you get mostly just the obvious emotions and reactions — all the complexity is reserved for the world building.

And yes, there is some propaganda for sure, and not all of it is subtle. Hey, it’s your film, and if you want your characters to espouse a certain viewpoint, have at it, but don’t make it so disconcertingly obvious, will ya?

Much of the chatter online has been about the propaganda. Just as with Animal, it sometimes feels like the conversation has been about what the film is about, rather than how it is about it. It is not my place to tell someone else how they should decide what aspect of a film they liked or disliked. And since this is partly based on true events, there is some inevitable bellyaching about how much fiction has been mixed into the facts.

As for me, I have no dog in the fight here. I am not a big fan of performative patriotism, but I don’t have a problem with it making its way onto the screen either. The flag burning scene in Roja didn’t quite work for me, for instance. The national anthem scene in Dangal kinda sorta did, and the film managed to salvage a very corny, contrived moment by laying out the groundwork for it much earlier. So, bottom line, like Nirvana once said: Here we are now, entertain us.

I was entertained.