Dhurandhar- The Revenge: A rev

Entertainment

Dhurandhar- The Revenge: A review by actor Bobby Chakrabort

The war is here…the battle is fought…and team Dhurandhar massacred every naysayer…and how! It is a war of good against evil…a war of real talent versus mediocrity…a war of good cinema against trash… a war of unity as a team against patronism…a war of a wounded tiger named Aditya Dhar against everyone who made him bleed for years…a war of a supposedly fading star named Ranveer Singh against everyone who thought he was done!

As an audience, as an actor and as a lover of cinema it was a war for us too…on every front…against our hard earned money, time and emotions being scammed for years, with Cinema taking a nose dive into the dark dungeon of nepotism, non actors, unscrupulous, incompetent film makers and producers.
With Dhurandhar 1 & 2 , I am sure you will see a bright ray of hope too in Aditya Dhar as the skipper, more than a filmmaker.

With my experience of 25 years in small and big screen as an actor, I have seen good projects, great scripts, great actors, good producer go down the drain, due to the the ‘skipper' of that project, who was never a captain, never a director…too selfish…too greedy…never worked as a team…a megalomaniac…incompetent...driven by basic instincts…never wanted to do or could do good enough work on screen. So with Dhurandhar 1 and more with the explosive 2nd part(The Revenge) I am sure there will be a refreshing feeling of a genius, getting his due recognition and a filmmaker , who we are going to celebrate for years ahead.

After that elaborate yet required introduction, lets address the elephant in the room… DHURANDHAR-THE REVENGE! As I arrived in the auditorium,I just realized it has been a long gap since I had the urge to turn up for the 1st preview show, ahead of the release of a film…and the euphoria among everyone present there was something to experience to believe it!

What’s the USP of Dhurandhar? It’s the unique quality of seamlessly blending fact and fiction, as iconic movies like 'Anonymous’, ‘Apocalypto', ‘Waterworld' etc. did in the west, but in an even more entertaining mode, unlike anything that Indian cinema has ever seen. Hence the gigantic 250 crores + in advance global box office collection even before its release!

Next point that puts both the parts, miles ahead of every film, is the spot on casting by Mukesh Chhabra and the fantastically written characters by Aditya, making even the smallest of the roles becoming iconic and memorable.

In the 2nd part the story takes a prequel turn into the heartfelt and violent backstory of Hamza a.k.a. Jaskirat played brilliantly by Ranveer. Without giving away much details, it prepares the perfect motivation of him becoming this ruthless killing machine. Here and in one of the most shocking interval block, actor Udaybir Sandhu shines as Jaskirat’s childhood friend.

With a sprawling runtime of 229 mins, divided into several episodes, one doesn’t feel how 4 hours pass by, with so much happening in every one of them. If you thought episode – ‘The Revenge’ was the climax…wait for what happens next and how! Hence the editor Shivkumar V. Panicker needs to be lauded here with a loud applause.

As the story progresses you feel the impending doom in the name of Major Iqbal played by Arjun Rampal over Hamza. The clever screenplay by Aditya, Lokesh and Shivkumar sets you up for the bloody climax. Arjun was the perfect and formidable antagonist to Ranveer’s character, which made the proceedings all the more engaging and made him the true hero.

But the scene stealer here was Rakesh Bedi. One couldn’t help but feel emotional as an actor to see another actor, who has worked for over 4 decades…getting so much of love at last!

Coming to the music , Shashwat Sachdev has recreated the old hits of 80s and 90s along with English classics here too, with a lot of black humour in the situations that they are put in.

Hats off to the art directors Yogesh Bansode and Karansinh PratapSinh Chavda for doing an astounding work of recreating Pakistan so authentically on the sets of Thailand.

A big round of applause for the makeup department especially the prosthetic designer Preetisheel Singh Dsouza for the work on a character that I can’t reveal here!

The vivid cinematography of Vikash Nowlakha captured or recreated Chandigarh, Ladak, Uttar Pradesh, Pakistan through his lense so powerfully that the locations became characters in the storyline too.

The stunt team, the special effects and graphics team along with the sound designer Bishwadeep Chatterjee have done a tremendous job of creating the ultraviolent, gory, explosive and thrilling moments , grounded to reality.

Overall kudos to the producers Aditya, Lokesh and Jyoti Deshpande of Jio Studios for backing this landmark venture, which celebrates the power of a new India.

Rating - **/5

---The reviewer Bobby Chakraborty is an actor /activist and teacher of method acting from Kolkata---