Three months after Aditya Dhar dropped Dhurandhar on December 5 and sent the internet into a frenzy, the sequel is finally here. The first film was something else a docu-drama style spy saga that millions of Indian moviegoers had been waiting years to experience on the big screen. It broke records and broke people’s expectations in the best way. So when Dhurandhar: The Revenge arrived, the weight of that legacy was sitting squarely on its shoulders. And honestly? It buckles a little under that weight.
The Story, Without Spoilers
Picking up right where the first film left off, The Revenge digs into the backstory of Jaskirat Singh Rangi the man behind Hamza Ali Mazari, the Indian intelligence operative who burrowed deep into Karachi’s Lyari gang and clawed his way to become its King. This film tells you why. Why Jaskirat became Hamza. What drove him to this mission in the first place.
The answer lives in Pathankot, India, where the police wronged him and his family. When they sought help from the government, what they got instead was the death of his father and the destruction of everything he knew. Enter R. Madhavan as Ajay Sanyal, the intelligence officer who recruited Jaskirat into this dangerous double life.
Fast forward to Pakistan. With Rehman Dakait (Akshaye Khanna) dead killed by Hamza after he teamed up with Chaudhary Aslam (Sanjay Dutt) Hamza now runs Lyari. He has a business. A family. And a burning, unfinished score to settle. How does he take that revenge? Does he get caught? That I’ll leave for you to find out.
Where The Revenge Goes Wrong
Here’s the blunt truth: Dhurandhar raised the bar so high that this sequel had a near-impossible task from day one. And while The Revenge goes bigger, louder, and considerably more brutal particularly in the climax it can’t quite recreate what made the first film feel special.
At 3 hours and 55 minutes, it’s not just long it feels long. Large chunks of the runtime are padded with fight sequences that should have been cut in the edit. The first half drags noticeably. The second half rushes. Even the big revelations, the moments you’d expect to hit like a gut punch, land with a thud rather than a bang.
Also Read:Dhurandhar 2: NSD Actor Plays ‘Bade Sahab’, Not Salman Khan Or Emraan Hashmi !
The spy saga that gripped audiences in part one has largely been traded in for a gangster thriller here. Dialogues go overboard. Action and violence swallow the story whole rather than serving it. There were stretches where I found myself simply going along with the film not pulled in, just… present.
What does hold the film together is its linear, detailed storytelling. It’s a clean narrative, never messy or confusing, touching on real-life events and personalities in a way that grounds the chaos. The background score is loud genuinely, relentlessly loud but it earns its place during the climax, making the theatrical experience feel worthwhile.
This Is Ranveer Singh’s Film — Fully and Finally
In the first Dhurandhar, let’s be honest: Akshaye Khanna ran away with the film. His Dakait was magnetic, dangerous, unforgettable. Ranveer was skilled, but Khanna was the sun everything orbited around.
That’s flipped now. Dhurandhar: The Revenge belongs entirely to Ranveer Singh from the opening frame to the final one. He’s commanding the whole way through, with a long beard and an over-the-top look that, in some portions, felt a bit overdressed for the gritty realism the film is otherwise going for. But whatever the costume department gave him, he wore it.
And then there’s the acting itself. One bathroom scene where Hamza breaks down after killing someone close to him is as raw as anything Ranveer has done on screen. The way he delivers dialogue, oscillating between cold fury and quiet fragility, is genuinely impressive. This is one of the most unguarded performances of his career.
Final Verdict
Dhurandhar: The Revenge is a film of strong parts that don’t always add up to a strong whole. The cast is formidable. The scale is massive. Ranveer Singh delivers. But the script leans too hard on action at the expense of the tension and intrigue that made the original so gripping.
If the first film was a chess match, the sequel sometimes feels like a brawl — louder, messier, and less precise. Worth watching for Ranveer’s performance and the sheer theatrical experience, but it doesn’t quite live up to what came before.
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