Aditya Dhar's 'Dhurandhar' draws critical reaction from Pakistan over inaccuracies

Karachi: Aditya Dhar’s “Dhurandhar” has triggered a fierce debate in India and even across the border, where the story is set, drawing criticism from Pakistani critics and social media users who claim that the movie has numerous factual inaccuracies and the makers have taken creative liberties.

Released on December 5, the high-octane spy thriller is directed and written by Dhar. Featuring Ranveer Singh in the lead role, the film follows covert intelligence operations set against a backdrop of geopolitical and terror events like Kandahar plane hijack, 2001 Parliament Attack and 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

The film, which has led to polarising reactions from many critics and people in India, is mostly set in Lyari town of Karachi, an area known for its history of gang wars and violent turf battles.

Now, Pakistani critics, actors and content creators have joined the conversation.

Omair Alavi, a noted film critic and writer, said though the movie is well-made with good performances, its depiction of Karachi and the events of 2007–2008 is not accurate.

“'Dhurandhar' is a well-made film, slick and the acting is also good but it has many factual inaccuracies about Karachi and the period of 2007-2008 shown in the film,” Alavi said.

“Our filmmakers are just not willing to make such propaganda films because it is a huge financial risk as when in the past such films were made on patriotic tones, they flopped at the box office,” he said.

According to Alavi, they are very few cinema houses left in the country, tickets are too expensive and people are happier watching quality dramas at home.

“As a critic, I can point out many inaccuracies in the movie. But at the end of the day, does the average film goer in India know about these things or even cares about them? For him, it is a slick action movie with big stars and Pakistanis are not good neighbours and thus it is a hit,” he added.

Drama actor Qamar Reza said unlike India, propaganda films that were made in Pakistan have always been rejected by the public.

“In Pakistan, when some propaganda or biographic films were made, they were done on low budgets and were badly made, so no one saw them," he said, while claiming that the idea of "Dhurandhar" seems to be inspired by a 2022 Pakistani movie based on the real-life cop Chaudhary Aslam, who was killed in a car bomb blast in 2014.

In the movie, Sanjay Dutt plays the role of Chaudhary Aslam, while Akshaye Khanna stars as real life gangster Rahman Dakait. Actor Arjun Rampal portrays Major Iqbal of ISI, a character based on terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri and R Madhavan essays the role of Indian spymaster Ajay Sanyal.

Content creator Bilal Hassan, better known as @mystapaki, summed up the conflicted reaction perfectly.

"It is very, very well-made. Action sequences fantastic, Akshaye Khanna’s acting was… I wanted to be upset at it, but I couldn’t be upset at it,” he said.

But he took issues with the many anti-Pakistan dialogues in the movie. “If that isn’t propaganda, I don’t know what it is," he said.

He said politics will continue between the two countries but in Pakistan no one wants to take ownership.

He said he had grown up seeing the Lyari gang wars.

“Chaudhry Aslam’s house was in front of my school. When there was a bomb blast on top of his house, my school’s windows broke. That’s how close to home this story was for me," he added.

“We won’t tell this story. Why? Because our politicians will get dirty. Our government will get dirty. So instead, we choose to just greenlight sh***y scripts..." In Pakistan, many viewers have criticised the movie for getting costumes wrong.

Some on social media pointed out that in Pakistan no one wears a half sleeve shalwar kameez, which was worn by Ranveer Singh's spy Hamza in the movie.