Dhruv Rathi says Dhurandhar 2 is BJP’s most expensive election ad
YouTuber Dhruv Rathi described ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ as BJP’s most expensive election campaign, which was made into a film and viewers were charged Rs 500 to watch the campaign. Rathi’s criticism highlighted how the film blurs fact and fiction.
Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar: Revenge It continues to break box office records and receive widespread praise in the film industry. However, like its predecessor, the film has sparked debate among audiences and commentators over its political message. Amidst this ongoing discussion, YouTuber Dhruv Rathi was the first to criticize. stalwart The film has shared an in-depth video analyzing the sequel.
Rathi says that after watching the new release his earlier concerns have become even stronger. In his video, Rathi commented, “Dhurandhar 2 is not a film made for entertainment, it is the most expensive election advertisement of BJP, you pay Rs 500 to watch it,” and the director “Maha Chaturkar” (The great flatterer).
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Rathi structured his criticism according to the film’s own narrative style, dividing his video into chapters. He questioned the film’s claim to be a fictional story inspired by real events and pointed out that its use of real faces, names, and archival footage blurred the line between fact and fiction.
He said, “You show the real face and real footage of Narendra Modi using real names like Dawood Ibrahim and then say it is all a coincidence?” Rathi called such disclaimers “a legal cheat code used to manipulate viewers so that they cannot tell where truth ends and fiction begins.”
The YouTuber also highlighted some scenes that he believes are designed to provoke strong emotional reactions, calling this technique “emotional priming”. He explained, “Create emotions first, then build your story on top of that.” Rathi said that some of these moments could be removed without affecting the plot, but they would serve to influence the audience’s perception.
He compared this approach to “feeding someone extremely spicy chillies, so that their tongue burns, and then forcing them to buy sweets,” adding, “Aditya Dhar burns the audience emotionally, so that they easily eat whatever propaganda is served later.”
Rathi further pointed to scenes where the villain praises India’s leadership, including a line attributed to a character based on Dawood Ibrahim. He described this as a deliberate and psychologically calculated choice, saying, “If the hero admires someone, it has less impact. But if the biggest villain does it, the audience becomes convinced on another level.”
The video also examines how the film portrays real events such as demonetization of 2016. Rathi argued that the narrative presented demonetization as a focused national security measure, while downplaying its wider economic impacts, including reports of deaths linked to cash shortages. He also mentioned a sequence inspired by the murder of Atiq Ahmed in 2023, noting that the film presents the incident differently from real events. Additionally, Rathee revealed that the ISI character played by Arjun Rampal is based on a real person who died in 2011.