Dhurandhar (2025) [Movie Review] — Ranveer Singh’s Relentless Undercover Opera

Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar is a brazen, operatic entry in modern Bollywood espionage: part undercover spy saga, part gangster epic. Anchored by Ranveer Singh’s intense, restrained turn as Hamza — an Indian operative who burrows into Karachi’s Lyari underworld — the film aims high and mostly lands there. It’s loud, brutal, and often brilliant, a nearly three-and-a-half-hour thrill ride that feels designed to kick off a franchise while still working as a self-contained, morally complicated spectacle.

Synopsis

A lone agent in enemy territory — grief, loyalty and a country’s history on the line

Framed across multiple chapters and inspired by landmark terror events from the late 1990s through the 2000s, Dhurandhar charts Hamza’s long game: infiltrate Karachi’s mafia, rise through its ranks, and sabotage terror plots from inside. R. Madhavan’s stern intelligence chief Ajay Sanyal codirects the covert mission, while a cast of gangsters, politicians and civilians populate a world where personal ties tangle with geopolitics. As Hamza grows closer to his marks, the film becomes as much about divided loyalties and the cost of betrayal as it is about espionage.

Performances

Ranveer’s simmering gravity and a heavyweight supporting ensemble

Ranveer Singh gives a career-steadying performance — not the brazen showman of some past roles, but a compact, magnetic presence with long hair, a weathered beard and an unsettling calm. He’s the movie’s emotional fulcrum: equal parts predator and penitent. Around him, Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal and R. Madhavan deliver sturdy, scene-stealing turns. Khanna, in particular, is magnetic as a fatherly gangster whose loyalty humanizes the criminal world. Sara Arjun provides a poignant, quieter counterpoint, while character actors like Saumya Tandon and Madhurjeet Sarghi add depth to the crowded ensemble.

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Direction & Craft

Dhar’s stylistic confidence turns violence into narrative propulsion

Aditya Dhar stages violence with a clinical, almost operatic flair. The cinematography favors cool, twilight hues that give the film a perpetual dusk, and the editing drives momentum across time jumps and sprawling set-pieces. Scenes of street-level brutality sit alongside intimate character moments; production design builds an immersive Lyari that feels lived-in, even if a few set details tilt anachronistic. Dhar’s control of tone — balancing melodrama, political overtones and noirish grit — is an impressive technical feat.

Music & Sound

Retro motifs and modern beats that keep the spine thrumming

The soundtrack mixes throwback Bollywood grooves with contemporary hip-hop and Arabic-inflected rhythms. Smartly used, the score underlines tension and punctuates action, while background design makes the film’s violent moments feel immediate and unflinching.

Themes & Analysis

Identity, revenge and the murky ethics of statecraft

Underneath its action, Dhurandhar is preoccupied with moral ambivalence: how far should an agent go? When does patriotism mutate into fanaticism? The film interrogates loyalty — to country, to comrades, to self — and asks whether violence can ever be truly redemptive. It also flirts with political currents, which fuel both its potency and its controversy.

Weaknesses

Length, occasional heavy-handedness, and thorny political edges

At nearly 3.5 hours, the film can feel indulgent; certain subplots and expository beats could be leaner. And because it borrows from real-world events and personae, its depiction of political and communal dynamics sometimes drifts toward simplistic tropes, which may unsettle viewers sensitive to representational nuance.

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Verdict

A provocative, propulsive spy epic that’s as troubling as it is thrilling

Dhurandhar is a rare mainstream Indian film willing to be ugly, complicated and unapologetically cinematic at once. It’s flawed — noisy in places and morally ambiguous in a way that will spark debate — but it’s also a powerful piece of filmmaking led by Ranveer Singh’s committed performance and Aditya Dhar’s muscular vision. For fans of high-stakes spy sagas and gangster epics, this is a hard-to-miss experience.

Overall Rating: ★★★★⯪ (4.5/5)