Stealth management

Dhurandhar is a confusing 3.5-hour gambit: a hero forced to accept failure, a tale that exists mainly in the promise of part two

- Deepanjana Pal

When director Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar was released in theatres on December 5, reports began to trickle in of block bookings over its first weekend.

"The story of the film is something like the hero infiltrating the terrorists but here it's become about infiltrating the multiplexes and buying tickets," the trade magazine Box Office India noted, while reporting that the film didn’t need such tactics. It was already garnering good word-of-mouth publicity.

Dhurandhar really did gather steam. It is now set to be one of the biggest hits of 2025.

The film follows an Indian spy named Hamza (Ranveer Singh) who infiltrates a criminal gang in Karachi by posing as a lowly thug, and gets a ringside view of the blood-spattered turf wars in the notoriously violent neighbourhood of Lyari. He also sees first hand the nexus between politicians, gang lords, military establishment and terror networks. All of which is a setup for Part 2 of Dhurandhar, which is due out in March.