Ranveer Singh is back on the big screen with Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, reportedly the longest film of his career, and the recently released trailer has left audiences with plenty of questions.

The trailer, which premiered on Tuesday, presents an intense spy-action saga featuring Singh as an Indian spy deployed in Pakistan specifically in Karachi’s Lyari.

The film’s star-studded cast includes Arjun Rampal, R. Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt, and Akshay Khanna.

Rampal’s character, Major Iqbal, is painted as a menacing figure with a personal obsession against India, while Ajay Sanyal, modelled on India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, is portrayed as determined to infiltrate Lyari to combat terrorism.

Akshay Khanna plays Abdul Rehman Baloch also known as Rehman Dakait here reimagined as a threatening “Apex Predator.”

Sanjay Dutt portrays the late Karachi counter-terror officer SP Chaudhry Aslam Khan. At the center of it all is Singh’s character, depicted as “The Wrath of God,” sent to eradicate terrorism supposedly rooted in Lyari.

The trailer raises a number of questions: how did Lyari, historically a neighborhood affected by gang violence and policing, become depicted as a global terror hub?

Why are real-life figures like Rehman Dakait and Chaudhry Aslam suddenly connected to cross-border espionage?

These creative liberties diverge significantly from documented history, transforming local events into a highly dramatized, action-packed narrative.

While the film appears visually compelling and the casting is impressive, the storyline blurs the line between fact and fiction, adopting the “inspired by true events” label in a way that may misrepresent reality.

Films like this, while engaging, remind us of the responsibility storytellers carry in portraying historical events with care.

Cinema has the power to educate and entertain, and when it strays too far from truth, it risks reshaping collective memory in ways that can distort understanding of real lives and communities.