Dhurandhar, the recent Hindi spy movie directed by Aditya Dhar and starring Ranveer Singh, has gotten itself mired in more controversy after India’s Film Critics Guild issued a statement claiming that its critical reviews have invited harassment and targeted attacks on journalists and movie critics.
“What began as disagreement has rapidly devolved into coordinated abuse, personal attacks on individual critics, and organised attempts to discredit their professional integrity,” the statement read.
The statement can be traced to Anupama Chopra’s review of the movie on Hollywood Reporter India, which received massive backlash and was subsequently made private for reasons unknown. In her review, accessed in clips since it has been taken down, she called it exhausting and relentless, among other words.
“Dhurandhar is an exhausting, relentless, and frenzied espionage thriller propelled by charismatic, murderous men, too much testosterone, shrill nationalism, and inflammatory anti-Pakistan narrative,” read her review reportedly. Chopra, who also serves as the chairperson of the FCG, received intense hate comments on her review, with even high-profile people condemning her review.
The FCG also claimed that there have been attempts at “silencing their perspectives, simply for expressing their professional assessment of a film.”
Rahul Desai, another movie critic affiliated with the FCG, mentioned in his review, “The desire to paint every Pakistani as a sinner and a fool is at odds with the film’s decision to give them so much screen time; it’s often torn between playing them up (Khanna has more entry shots than single-screen superstars) and cutting them down to size.”
The online discourse clearly shows that any review that did not glorify the movie or praise it in any way met with negativity and what FCG called an organised attack. “We are also deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of our colleagues from across the country. No professional should be subjected to personal vilification simply for doing their job,” the statement said.
Further, it claimed that “there have been attempts to tamper with existing reviews, influence editorial positions, and persuade publications to alter or dilute their stance.”
Multiple right-wing groups and individuals’ reaction to the reviews, which acknowledged all aspects of the film, the good or the bad, were jarring and at times extremely demeaning.
Some called Anupam Chopra’s reviews a “textbook example of a colonized mind,” as her not liking the movie’s supposed “extreme patriotism” was seen as “anti-national and toxic”. However, it may be noted that since the BJP has come to power in India in 2014, more movies on these lines have been made, with some being direct propaganda like Kashmir Files.
Claims behind why her review was taken down were also linked to the fact that her review, posted on Hollywood Reporter, is owned by Sanjiv Goenka’s RPSG, which also leads Saregama India Ltd handling Dhurandhar’s music.
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