Dhurandhar set a benchmark. Its sequel was always going to have the unenviable task of clearing it. On StratNewsGlobal’s The Gist, Editor-in-Chief Nitin Gokhale, who has decades of experience in understanding how the intelligence apparatus works, delivers a verdict that is more nuanced, and more interesting, than most film reviews. Dhurandhar The Revenge is compelling, occasionally brilliant, frequently excessive.
The first criticism lands early. The film’s opening half meanders, and the violence, already a talking point after the first instalment, has been dialled up. “The violence got stretched a lot more,” he says. His suggestion is precise: shorten the graphic sequences and increase the build-up; let the tension work before the bloodshed arrives.
The film draws on genuine operations – counterterrorism actions, cross-border strikes, events that are fresh in public memory – and weaves them into a fictionalised narrative with enough grounding in reality to feel earned. His conclusion: it would have worked regardless of which government was in power, because the stories themselves are strong enough to carry it.
It felt natural to take the conversation to its next logical turn. What is the life of a real spy and how close does it come to what is often depicted on the big screen? Real R&AW officers, Nitin Gokhale explains, bear no resemblance to the large-than-life action figures Bollywood loves. They are quiet, ordinary-looking, painstaking in their methods – closer to John le Carre than James Bond. Successes are rarely made public; failures are what make the news. And yet the stories exist.
He recounts one from 1971. A mole inside Pakistani Air Force headquarters who gave India advance warning of the December air strikes, allowing aircraft to be moved to safety. A decoding error shifted the timeline by 24 hours, nearly causing the tip to be dismissed. The officer held his nerve. The attack came exactly as predicted. It helped trigger India’s entry into the war and, ultimately, the creation of Bangladesh. “That kind of success,” he says, “changes the course of history.”
It is, by any measure, a better spy story than anything currently on screen. And that, perhaps, is Dhurandhar The Revenge’s most lasting contribution – not the film itself, but the door it opens for the stories that still haven’t been told.
