DOP Vikash Nowlakha Reveals How Aditya Dhar and He Built The Look of Dhurandhar

Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, starring Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, among others, is soaring at the box office. The film has earned praise from movie lovers not just for the narrative and performances but also for the striking visuals. The cinematography, led by DoP Vikash Nowlakha, is the film’s spine.

Talking about the same, Nowlakha shared, “I’ve waited my entire life for a film that allowed this texture … and with this one Aditya truly let me off the leash and for this I’m grateful! The stakes were high, and the clock was always ticking, but this one in particular had a tremendous amount of material to cover. We shot the equivalent of four movies in the time and budget allotted for one. Often, in the most chaotic of situations, if it could break, it broke…mayhem was the mainstay, and that became a language.”

He continued, “But then again, ‘calm seas have never made a good sailor’. The world of the film should feel like it is watching you back.” One of the striking choices is the film’s commitment to shadow as narrative. Instead of treating darkness as an aesthetic flourish, Dhurandhar uses it as subtext. Narrow corridors, dim Karachi safehouses, cramped rooms with a single practical light source make up the crux of the visuals.

Dhurandhar is set against the backdrop of the IC-814 hijacking in 1999 and the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. The film follows Ajay Sanyal, the Intelligence Bureau Chief, as he assigns Hamza (Ranveer Singh) a high-risk mission to dismantle a terrorist group operating across the border. The film also stars Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Manav Gohil and Danish Pandor, among others.