Emraan Hashmi, riding fresh off the success of The Ba***ds of Bollywood, is gearing up to lead Netflix’s upcoming series Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web. He’s also in the headlines again, but not for his role; instead, it’s his spirited defence of Dhurandhar, a film he openly admits he hasn’t watched, that is doing the rounds.
While speaking to India Today about his OTT turn, Hashmi was asked whether the runaway success of a film like Dhurandhar ever stings.
“There is a crap mentality in our industry,” he replied, arguing that people like to run down films instead of celebrating them. If something is doing well, he added, everyone should be happy because it boosts the industry and keeps the cash flowing.
He also praised the film’s marketing, noting how audiences were turning out in large numbers for a nearly three-and-a-half-hour spectacle, including midnight and early-morning screenings.
The fact that Hashmi hasn’t actually seen the film didn’t stop him from calling it “a great film” and marvelling at the audacity of releasing a two-part, marathon-length blockbuster that’s managed to dominate the box office. In his telling, commercial success is the ultimate defence — if people are buying tickets, who are critics to complain?
That argument might sit comfortably within Bollywood’s long-standing belief that numbers silence dissent. But Dhurandhar isn’t just another glossy hit. It has been one of the most polarising Indian releases in recent memory, especially on this side of the border.
Yes, the film has shattered records in India, becoming the highest-grossing Hindi film domestically and handing Akshaye Khanna a Shah Rukh Khan-sized box office milestone. It has also cemented Ranveer Singh once again as a dependable draw. Financially, there’s no debating its muscle.
Politically and culturally, however, it’s a different story.
From the moment of its release, Dhurandhar has been criticised for its ideological bent, with many viewers and commentators describing it as thinly veiled propaganda dressed up as muscular espionage cinema. The film’s treatment of regional politics, nationalism and history has triggered discomfort among audiences in Pakistan and India.
Hrithik Roshan, whose own career has benefitted from large-scale patriotic spectacles like Fighter, publicly distanced himself from the film’s politics, saying he may disagree with its messaging even if he respects the craft. That caveat alone became news — a rare moment of restraint in an industry that usually avoids publicly questioning a blockbuster’s ideological underpinnings.
Online, the film has continued to divide viewers sharply, with debates spilling across social media timelines. It reportedly faced a ban in the Middle East over its “anti-Pakistan messaging”, and makers also had to mute the word Baloch over backlash from the Baloch community in Junagadh for purported hate speech.
Some hail the film as gripping, unapologetic entertainment; others see it as a troubling example of how commercial cinema increasingly flattens complex political realities into chest-thumping spectacle.
Which makes Hashmi’s defence feel less like a principled stand for artistic freedom and more like a familiar Bollywood reflex: if it sells, don’t question it.
Moreover, there’s something faintly ironic about dismissing criticism as “crap mentality” while admitting you haven’t engaged with the work being debated at all. It also quietly sidesteps what much of the criticism is actually about — not whether the film is slick, marketable or technically ambitious, but what it chooses to say, omit and amplify.
