Dhurandhar is “a quantum leap” in the craft of Indian cinema, says Ram Gopal Varma

High praise has come for the latest Bollywood blockbuster Dhurandhar from one of the pioneers of new-age Hindi cinema, Ram Gopal Varma aka RGV.

The controversy around the intensity of bloodshed in Dhurandhar and the portrayal of the military-terrorist nexus in Pakistan has overshadowed the groundbreaking craft of filmmaking by Aditya Dhar.

In a long post on X, Varma has brought attention back to the way Dhurandhar is made and what it means for Indian cinema.

“I believe that @AdityaDharFilms has completely and single-handedly changed the future of Indian cinema, be it north or south. That’s because Dhurandhar is not just a film, it is a quantum leap,” writes RGV, who is known for his iconic Hindi films like Satya, Rangeela, and Company.

He continues: “What Dhurandhar achieves is not just scale, but a never before experienced vision not just in sight but in the mind. Aditya Dhar doesn’t direct scenes here… he engineers the states of minds of both the characters and us audience.

“The film doesn’t ask for your attention; it commands it. From the very first shot, there’s a sense that something irreversible has been set in motion, and the audience is no longer a spectator but an accomplice to the happenings on screen.”

Going into an analysis of the script, RGV says: “Dhar understands that power in storytelling is not volume… it’s pressure building. Every sequence feels compressed, like a spring being wound never knowing when it will snap. And when it does, the impact is not just brutal but it is also symphonically operatic.”

Further discussing the performances, the sound design, and the action choreography, Varma says that Dhurandhar stands proudly with its Indian soul.

“This is not a film chasing trends or validation. It is a solemn declaration that Indian cinema doesn’t need to dilute itself to become successful and doesn’t need to mindlessly copy Hollywood. Dhar proved that it can be rooted and still be internationally cinematic,” says Varma on X.

Dhurandhar director Aditya Dhar has reacted warmly to the RGV post. Dhar, who had debuted with the military action drama Uri: The Surgical Strike in 2019, says that he came to Mumbai with the dream of working with Ram Gopal Varma, and now this praise makes him finally feel “seen”.

In an X post, Dhar says: “I came to Mumbai years ago carrying one suitcase, one dream, and an unreasonable belief that I would one day work under Ram Gopal Verma (sic). That never happened. But somewhere along the way, without knowing it, I worked inside your cinema. Your films didn’t teach me how to make movies — they taught me how to think dangerously.”

Dhar’s post adds that Varma’s praise for Dhurandhar as “a quantum leap” feels “surreal, emotional, and honestly a little unfair… because now whatever I do next has to live up to this tweet”.

He concludes the post by saying: “Thank you for this generosity, this madness, and this validation. The fan in me is overwhelmed. The filmmaker in me feels challenged. And the boy who came to Mumbai to work under RGV… finally feels seen.”

Featuring Ranveer Singh in the title role, and with Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, Sara Arjun, R Madhavan, and Rakesh Bedi in the cast, Dhurandhar released in theatres on December 5. Its box office collection in India has already crossed INR 500 crore. The worldwide box office collection of the film is over INR 700 crore (USD 78.12 million).

The film follows covert intelligence operations set against a backdrop of geopolitical conflict and terrorist events like the Kandahar plane hijack of 1999; the Indian Parliament attack of 2001; and the 26/11 Mumbai siege of November 2008.

It is produced by Aditya Dhar and Lokesh Dhar under B62 Studios, in association with Jyoti Deshpande’s Jio Studios.