Why Dhurandhar sounds different: How sound, silence and reworked classics reinvent the Indian spy thriller

Indian spy films have traditionally relied on loud background scores and heroic musical cues to underline action and patriotism.

‘Dhurandhar’, directed by Aditya Dhar, takes a markedly different approach. The film treats sound as a narrative device rather than an emotional shortcut. Music, dialogue and silence are carefully arranged to reflect the inner life of its protagonist and the moral cost of covert operations.

One of the film’s most discussed sequences is the showdown between Hamza and the goons of Arshad Pappu's gang where Bappi Lahiri’s ‘Rambha Ho’ plays. The choice is deliberately unsettling. A song associated with glossy 1980s Bollywood plays against modern tactical violence, creating a dissonance that feels almost grotesque.

The effect is not to stylise the action, but to expose its absurdity. For Hamza, a man trapped between identities, the collision of retro glamour and present-day brutality mirrors his fractured existence.

Sound design becomes even more pointed in scenes involving R. Madhavan’s Ajay Sanyal. Hamza never speaks to him. The conversations are entirely one-sided, with Ajay issuing instructions and observations into a void. This absence of dialogue strips Hamza of agency.

He is an instrument, not a collaborator. Ambient sounds often overpower these exchanges, reinforcing the idea that Hamza’s role is functional, not human. He exists to execute orders, not to be heard.

Music in Dhurandhar also carries cultural memory. ‘Jogi’, used for the film’s title track, is not confined to a single moment. Its instrumental motifs are scattered throughout the narrative, appearing in fragments during escapes, transitions and moments of internal conflict.

This repetition gives the track a haunting quality. It follows Hamza like a shadow, tying his covert present to a past he has been forced to abandon.

The chase sequence scored with ‘Run Down the City (Monica)’ pushes the film into a different sonic register. The track blends electronic urgency with a restless urban pulse, driving the sequence forward without overwhelming it. Rather than signalling heroism, the music emphasises pursuit and paranoia. Every beat feels like a step closer to exposure.

Perhaps the film’s most inventive choice lies in how it reworks familiar songs through the incorporation of rap.

Tracks such as ‘Ishq Jalakar’, ‘Ye Ishq Ishq Hai’, ‘Jogi’ and ‘Monica! O My Darling!’ are reimagined with modern rap elements woven into their structure. The rap does not replace the original melodies; it interrupts them.

This disruption reflects the world of Dhurandhar, where identities are unstable and loyalties are constantly tested. The old songs carry nostalgia, but the rap fractures that comfort, dragging them into a harsher, contemporary reality.

Silence, however, remains the film’s most powerful weapon. In a prolonged sequence set in the Karachi roads and highways, the background score disappears entirely. There is no music to guide emotion or promise escape. Only breathing, distant static and environmental sounds remain. The silence is oppressive. It reminds the audience of the film’s central truth: if Hamza dies, there will be no anthem, no ceremony and no acknowledgement. His life officially never existed.

Because Hamza is a “death-row recruit”, this silence represents his isolation. There is no swelling patriotic score to make him feel like a hero. In these tunnels, he is just an expendable man in a dark hole.

(Also, the assumption that Hamza is a death row recruit is something we inferred from the last 10 minutes of the film. It hasn't openly been mentioned in the film.)

Through its careful use of retro tracks, folk motifs, rap and silence, Dhurandhar reshapes the sonic language of Indian spy cinema. The film does not use music to reassure or glorify. It uses sound to unsettle, to question and to reveal the cost of a life lived in shadows.