They are primarily about India interrogating and reimagining its recent past of the 21st century; Pakistan is just the agent, or external enemy-stimulus that acts as a mirror for India to examine itself and ask what kind of nation it considers itself to be and what kind of nation it wants to be.

The raucous partisan debate among Indians over the movie is proof of this interrogation at work.

” Mirror and Mask: Gangs of Wasseypur, Dhurandhar , and Violence We Choose to See”

By Raj Shekhar

https://thewire.in/film/mirror-and-mask-gangs-of-wasseypur-dhurandhar-and-violence-we-choose-to-see

Gangs of Wasseypur is often celebrated for its moral complexity, its refusal to judge, its sprawling, novelistic embrace of human contradictions. And much of that praise is deserved. But Kashyap’s film also aestheticises a great deal of brutality; it makes violence beautiful often enough that a viewer could leave the cinema having enjoyed the carnage without once interrogating the structures that produced it. A film can have moral complexity in its characterisation while still delivering, structurally, the pleasures of a thriller. Complexity is not the same as critique.

Dhurandhar, meanwhile, is accused of propaganda, and the accusation lands. Aditya Dhar found certain pre-existing fears that exists in the culture and decided to amplify them rather than interrogate. Problem isn’t that he made a nationalistic film, problem is that nationalism, deployed as cinema, tends to do to people what Dhurandhar does to its Pakistani characters, gives them form while denying them any interiority.

To add to this:

Jaskirat’s mother was also getting 30000 a month. For him it was merely a job where he escaped the death sentence and was providing for his family. He didn’t particularly care for Pakistan either way.

He was doing his job as a spy but it was a job.

26/11 was when it became more than a job.

“It is a short distance from that premise to a football scene with a severed head, which Dhurandhar 2 includes without irony.”

Disagree with these points too.

Except Dawood, all of the deaths happened on the exact dates they are shown.

Uzair beheaded Pappu and played football with his head.

Later on he was convicted for spying for India.

Aslam died via a car bomb.

Rehman died in an encounter with Aslam.

Khanani did fall off the building.

There is no multiplying targets faster. Each and every one of the unknown gunmen targets died in the manner that was shown.

This has been confirmed by Pakistanis themselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/04/indian-government-assassination-allegations-pakistan-intelligence-officials

This is wrong. It was interrogated in both the films.

He openly says at the tea shop he was only interested in doing a few years and then returning to India somehow. It was 26/11 that makes him hate Pakistan and when Pakistan wronged him.

Aalam gives him the list of targets on the bridge that day. Before that he had no interest in assassinating anyone and simply passed information about possible attacks and currency plates. That’s why the second part is called The Revenge.

Even Rahman was not a target initially. He gets added only on the day of the wedding to prevent a second attack. And in the final fight with Rehman, it is the memory of 26/11 that gives him the boost.

Also another hidden detail. 26/11 was his birthday (It can be seen on the passport) so that adds even greater significance.

I think an issue with a lot of people is that they are taking this film as a standalone film instead of seeing it as the second part of a long 7 hour movie. When you see it in that context, everything flows better. It was initially meant to be a single movie.

I think the best experience would be rewatching both films back to back and that is when you see all the details.

He didn’t want Pakistanis adapting him as an icon.

Also this movie is the victory stretch for the first movie’s setup.

Just like in cricket where India invested much in its systems so that Pakistan can be swatted away without any trouble in the current day.

Also the beheading of Arshad Pappu happened in real life as well as all the deaths (including the unknown gunmen kills).

This movie doesn’t really care about Afghanistan/Iran. Its entire purpose is about showing the India centric terror network.

A movie about Afghanistan/Iran is Pakistan’s to make.