I am a critic. I review movies. I am also a trade analyst. I report box office collections too. At times, there is a Catch 22 situation that comes up.
I loved a film. It bombed. I have to report things as is.
On the other hand, I didn’t like a film. It emerged superhit though. I have to report as is.
All of that is still okay, it’s more about maintaining your integrity and before anything else, keep your love for cinema intact, mainly Bollywood, which I follow to the core as commercial cinema is what I believe will keep the industry running. Yes, there is this whole parallel/off-beat cinema as well, and that needs to be critiqued differently, and assessed with a different lens when it comes to box office returns.
This is where the topic of Dhurandhar comes up.
It’s a commercial film. It has its eyes set at the box office. It intends to reach out to the maximum number of people possible. It is a star driven affair with a treatment that’s out and out commercial.
It doesn’t make two bones about it.
Hence, it needs to be critiqued and analysed accordingly with a verdict which is in line with its overall commercial reach.
This is where few of us erred, or let me put it in a different way, looked at it by wearing a lens which wasn’t even required for this film.
We ended up wondering if this was a propaganda in the making. We ended up bringing in the religion angle. We ended up getting into the whole Left vs Right debate. We ended up bringing in the nationalism, patriotism and jingoism angles into it.
And that, when the fact remains that even that one single time when there was a slogan of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, there was stunned silence. There was no Jana Gana Mana or Vande Mataram either, when it could so easily have been incorporated into the film. There was no mandir or masjid scene either.
All that was shown in the film was – “See, here are these bad people on both sides of the border. There are perpetrators of crime and then there are supporters on the other side too. There are opportunistic politicians on one side and then there are corrupt bureaucrats on the other side too. There is an underworld creating mayhem for the globe and then there are petty gangsters on the other side too whose actions are only aiding terrorism.”
In fact if at all the film could have been accused of, then it was that why our own country was shown to be weak in so many aspects and that too with different political parties running the show.
Nonetheless, coming back to the core of the film, it could well have been the fact that there was a clear black and white about the whole scenario and it may have perhaps taken a clear side right through. Still, the manner in which it was pitched as a propaganda affair by a few was questionable, or if one puts it right mildly, then debatable.
After all, Dhurandhar was a commercial film with guns, explosions, fights and all the twists and the turns associated with it that go with a high adrenalin action drama thriller Bollywood biggie. It was always meant to be a film watched for entertainment purposes, as can be seen with its box office success of being an All Time Blockbuster already. Now when a film is pitched like that then any critic has an absolute right to like or dislike it, and comment on the entertainment side of affairs.
Did I like the film? Yes, but I may as well have disliked it and said that this one didn’t entertain me. That’s still beyond the point. What has to be thought of is where does one draw the line when it comes to getting into the political, religious and nationalist side of affairs when it comes to checking out a film of this genre and treatment.
It’s like picking an art film which has been released on 5 shows across the country and trying to debate on the commercial veracity of it and then comparing it with 500 Crore Club blockbusters.
It won’t make sense, right?
Or would it?
