The most revelatory and thrilling portions of the film are when we get to know Jaskirat Singh Rangi and what unfortunate circumstances led him to become Hamza Ali Mazari. We see him as a vulnerable, 21-year-old boy, who once dreamt of donning the Army uniform, but because of an untoward incident and a violent retaliation is now on death row. Eventually he is saved, recruited and given a rebirth by Madhavan’s Ajay Sanyal for operation Dhurandhar. Jaskirat/ Hamza’s interiority portrayed by Ranveer Singh’s subliminal performance is the highlight of the film. With multiple plans in motion, mind games, back-stabbings and political manoeuvrings, Ranveer’s act is the emotional core of the film, grounding it whenever it starts going haywire.
Although I had problems with the prequel over its runtime, The Revenge’s 3 hours and 49 minutes duration sailed easier. The film keeps rattling on and there is either a joke or a blast when it gets sluggish. While Dhurandhar delivered the joys of a gangster epic, The Revenge has the stealth-and-strike machinations of a spy thriller (There is also a slow poison hidden in a ring. A smart, medieval touch). It’s thrilling to witness Hamza chip off the Pakistani syndicate bit by bit but what the film lacks is a formidable adversary. Arjun Rampal as Major Iqbal is at his conniving best and Sanjay Dutt’s SP Aslam is still entertaining with his flowery expletives but none of them could fill an Akshaye Khanna sized hole.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge continues to exhibit a strong command over its craft. I liked how an action sequence opened with a minimalistic image of just two innocuous grenades flying before blasting off in fiery fury. Director Aditya Dhar ably reigns the narrative and in a bid to remain engaging doesn’t resort to inundating the film with one action setup after another. The plot gets breathing time and some revelations are truly whistle-worthy. The Revenge’s genre pleasures keep you hooked but its political pushes are the ones that break the immersion. The film often seems desperate to convince its viewer how every action taken by the current regime was thought through. The Naxal movement, Punjab’s drug menace, Kashmir’s separatist inclinations, fake currency notes all have Pakistan’s evil tentacles over them whereas demonetisation and UP gangster Atiq Ahmed’s (called Atif Ahmed in the film) live assassination were all part of the regime’s grand plan to foil the neighbouring country’s devious methods. It can’t be that simplistic but then it’s just a movie. It’s the business of selling dreams.
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