Dhurandhar: The Revenge — Brilliant, Bloated, Divisive

Three months after it opened on Gudi Padwa, Dhurandhar: The Revenge is still the loudest argument in Indian cinema this year — and not only because of its money. Ranveer Singh's spy thriller has piled up over ₹1,800 crore worldwide, yet the conversation around it remains split right down the middle. Audiences walked out thrilled. A large share of critics walked out exhausted. Both reactions are real, and both are worth taking seriously before you decide whether to spend nearly four hours with it.

This is an honest read on what genuinely works, what doesn't, and why a film this commercially dominant can still be this contested.

The film, and the numbers that are confirmed

Dhurandhar: The Revenge is the second and final part of Aditya Dhar's duology, released in theatres worldwide on 19 March 2026. Ranveer Singh returns as the undercover Indian intelligence operative working inside Karachi's criminal underworld, with Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt and R. Madhavan in key roles. It carries an A (adults only) certificate and runs 229 minutes in its released cut, after some violence and language were trimmed.

The box-office record is settled fact. The film became the highest-grossing Hindi-language film domestically, the second-highest-grossing Indian film of all time, and the highest-grossing A-rated Indian film ever made. In dollar terms it crossed $190 million globally and became the first Indian film to clear $25 million in North America. Whatever the critical fight, the commercial verdict is not in doubt.

What genuinely works

Start with the thing almost nobody disputes: Ranveer Singh carries this. Even reviewers who disliked the film singled him out, and the recurring line across critic and audience reactions is that he holds the screen exactly when the writing or pacing starts to wobble. After a few years of mixed results, this is the performance that re-establishes him as a frontline draw.

The supporting bench helps. Audiences and critics repeatedly flagged the same names as standouts:

• Arjun Rampal, finally given a role with real teeth
• R. Madhavan, working in a colder, more controlled register
• Returning franchise characters who give the sprawling story some continuity

The other consistent positive is scale. The world-building, the production design, and a genuinely propulsive second half draw praise even from sceptics. When the film commits to being a big-screen spectacle, it delivers the kind of sustained action set-pieces that explain those ticket sales. For viewers who came for spectacle and a star turn, the film does what it promises.

What doesn't

The most common complaint is the simplest: it is too long. At 229 minutes, the runtime is the single most-cited flaw across reactions. Several critics described the sequel as overstuffed, with a sluggish middle stretch and thin characterisation propped up by sheer momentum. A film can be enormous and still feel padded, and a lot of viewers felt exactly that.

Then there's the violence. The A certificate isn't decorative. Reviewers used words like gore and brutality, and a few international critics found the relentlessness genuinely off-putting rather than thrilling. This is not a film that earns its rating by accident, and that intensity is a real dividing line.

The sharpest split is over tone and politics. A meaningful chunk of critics read the film's patriotic and pro-government messaging as too loud — declaration where the first film offered nuance. Some reviews went as far as calling stretches of it propaganda, arguing that the sequel is more interested in stating a position than dramatising one. There's also a softer, craft-level gripe: the background score and overall texture are seen by several as a step down from the precise world-building that made the 2025 original click.

Critics versus the crowd

The gap between professional and popular reaction here is unusually wide, and it's the most interesting thing about the film's reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, only around a third of roughly 20 critics' reviews are positive — a clearly mixed-to-negative critical consensus. International outlets were among the harshest, with some of the bluntest language reserved for the film's violence and messaging.

User-facing platforms tell a very different story. On IMDb the film sits high, and Indian booking-platform user scores are higher still. That spread isn't a contradiction so much as a measurement of two different things: critics graded craft, restraint and politics, while a mass audience graded star power, spectacle and emotional payoff. Both can be accurate. A film can be a four-star night out and a two-and-a-half-star piece of filmmaking at the same time.

It's worth being honest about the user numbers, too. Very high opening-week audience ratings on booking apps tend to come from the most enthusiastic fans first, and they usually settle as a broader crowd weighs in. Treat them as a signal of fan heat, not a neutral quality score.

So who is it actually for?

Strip away the box-office noise and the choice is fairly clear-cut.

1. You'll likely enjoy it if you loved the first Dhurandhar, you want a big star vehicle, and a long, violent, flag-forward spy thriller sounds like a good Saturday.
2. You'll probably struggle if you found the original's politics heavy-handed, you're sensitive to graphic violence, or a nearly four-hour runtime is a dealbreaker.
3. You're on the fence if you're a casual viewer — in which case the smart move is to watch the 2025 film first, because most of the emotional weight here depends on it.

One practical note: this is squarely an adults-only film. The A certificate and the level of violence make it a poor fit for younger viewers, regardless of the franchise's mainstream popularity.

What comes next

Dhar has framed this as the closing chapter of a two-part story, so on paper the arc is finished. Whether that holds is a separate question — a film this profitable rarely stays a duology in practice, and any talk of an extension or spin-off is awaited rather than confirmed. The film's streaming and satellite plans are likewise unannounced at the time of writing.

For now, Dhurandhar: The Revenge stands as the rare release that wins the marketplace and divides the room. The money says blockbuster. The reviews say buyer beware. The truth, as usual, is that it depends entirely on what you walked in wanting — and this is a film that knows exactly what it is, for better and worse.