POV: How Aditya Dhar's films turn me into both, a fan and a skeptic

The double-edged impact of Aditya Dhar’s cinema is such that it tends to become a craft that I admire the most but, at the same time, the subtext that I fear the most!

I still remember the first time I heard, “How’s the josh? High sir!” from Uri: The Surgical Strike. This dialogue became a phenomenon overnight and living in an army community, I saw first-hand how deeply the dialogue resonated with everyone around me, including me, as everyone spoke about how accurately it captured the spirit of the forces. The emotional intensity of that sentiment is something I’ve grown up  understanding as a do-or-die instinct, a readiness that soldiers are trained for, because, in life-or-death situations, hesitation can be fatal. Within the context of defence, that mindset has a clear purpose, and I understand why it is essential on the border.

But the challenge arises when that same sentiment travels beyond the battlefield and into public discourse, everyday politics, or even cinema, where the complexities of humanity, coexistence, and nuance cannot be governed by a “kill before you are killed” philosophy. This is where Aditya Dhar’s films often sit uneasily for me. I admire the craftsmanship, the technical excellence, and the conviction with which they’re made. I’m a huge fan of his work that strives to be different, bold and something new! Uri, for instance, was focused tightly on a special forces operation intended to neutralise terrorists, and that clarity of purpose works within the film’s framework.

What unsettles me is not the portrayal of the operation itself, which is handled tactfully, but the implication that this final, “legitimate” resort does not position itself with procedural neutrality it needs. Since the film is constructed as a step-by-step account of the actions that unfolded, it leaving a little room for the other side to be shown in more complex or grey shades troubles me. Even though this is how things might’ve happened, when you see it in a film, it lands differently. Because in reality, while the military is trained to act with a certain urgency, most civilians don’t always understand the nuance behind that mindset. When a film celebrates that aggressive action as a validating solution, it can blur the lines between a necessary military tactic and a broader biased social attitude. That is when cinema risks sliding, even unintentionally, into a narrative that feels one-sided or overly simplified.

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This is why a film like Raazicontinues to stand out to me. It showed troubles between two lands but also individuals on both sides, Indian and Pakistani, acting out of loyalty to their own nations. No one was portrayed as inherently evil; they were simply positioned on opposite ends of a conflict. That kind of narrative space where multiple perspectives or at least neutrality coexist is something I sometimes miss in Dhar’s work, even if it just focuses on the proceudral context of these issues. I felt this again while watching Article 370. The film focused strongly on why the article was considered problematic and how its removal was executed. While that might be a valid angle, the complexity of Kashmir as a political and emotional landscape demands more than a single narrative thread. And as personal backstories are added whether in Uri or Article 370 for emotional weight, they can also tilt the story toward being more of a justification rather than exploration. I’m not commenting on either of these acts, I leave that debate up to political intellectuals; I'm simply talking about the approach a film takes towards showcasing these stories.

Let's take Baramulla for instance. When things began, they started as a compelling depiction of how young minds can be radicalised and manipulated, almost like a vashikaran being done on them that pulls them to believe on what’s being told as the ultimate truth. But the shift towards Kashmiri Pandits being betrayed by a young Muslim child as an unequivocal antagonist flattened the earlier nuance. It can be that children hurt many pandits, but to say that they always had something against them would be unfair, especially in a film that acknowledges how the innocence of children could be exploited by larger forces. 

Despite these ideological concerns, I cannot deny that these films are incredibly well-crafted, tactfully built and something to be in awe of in terms of filmmaking. Their emotional persuasion is powerful enough that, without close examination, one might not notice how firmly they stand on a particular viewpoint. That subtlety is precisely why they affect me more than overtly propagandist films whose intentions are immediately visible.

And that brings me to Dhurandhar, released today. My hesitation is not about the gory violence on screen but about the possibility that, in depicting brutally violent individuals who need to be stopped, who need to be held accountable, the narrative might unintentionally lean toward bias. A recent discussion around one of the film’s song sequences, where a character is shown disguising himself by eating beef to survive, spiralled into something else. My hope is that Dhurandhar creates space for nuance and complexity, for the understanding that individuals can commit horrific acts, and that the actions of a few cannot be used to define where they come from.

After all, cinema is at its strongest when it can say what it wants to say but not as the ultimate truth. This is something I still hope to see in Dhar's films - to be absolutely in love with his work and not feel torn apart!

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