Dhadak 2 director Shazia Iqbal goes private after slamming Dhurandhar as “sinister” film promoting hate

Filmmaker Shazia Iqbal, known for her directorial debut Dhadak 2, has publicly criticised the spy thriller Dhurandhar, calling it “sinister” and asserting that “inciting hate and violence is in its DNA.” Her remarks, shared via Instagram Stories, have sparked debate within Bollywood and among audiences following the film’s successful run and recent Netflix release. Released in December 2025, Dhurandhar, directed by Aditya Dhar and featuring Ranveer Singh in the lead role, has become one of the highest-grossing Hindi films at the domestic box office. The action-oriented espionage narrative centres on an Indian spy embedded deep within a terror network, and includes a supporting cast of well-known actors such as Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt and Sara Arjun. Shazia Iqbal’s comments did not explicitly name the film in her initial post, but she paired her message with Dhurandhar’s title track, making clear the target of her critique. In her Instagram Story, she des...

Napoleon review – Joaquin Phoenix makes a magnificent emperor in thrilling biopic

Ridley Scott dispenses with the symbolic weight attached to previous biopics in favour of a spectacle with a great star at its centre

Many directors have tried following Napoleon where the paths of glory lead, and maybe it is only defiant defeat that is really glorious. But Ridley Scott – the Wellington of cinema – has created an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a movie, a full-tilt biopic of two and a half hours in which Scott doesn’t allow his troops to get bogged down mid-gallop in the muddy terrain of either fact or metaphysical significance, the tactical issues that have defeated other film-makers.

Scott cheekily imagines Napoleon firing on the pyramids in the Egyptian campaign as well as witnessing the execution of Marie Antoinette (but not the humiliation of Louis XVI by the Tuileries mob, which he might actually have seen). Out of deference moreover, Scott and his screenwriter David Scarpa suppress all mention of Napoleon’s reintroduction of slavery into the French colonies. But above all, there’s a deliciously insinuating portrayal of the doomed emperor from Joaquin Phoenix, whose derisive face suits the framing of a bicorne hat and jaunty tricolour cockade. Phoenix plays Napoleon as a military genius and lounge lizard peacock who is incidentally no slouch on horseback. Others might show Napoleon as a dreamy loner, but for Scott he is one half of a rackety power couple: passionately, despairingly in love with Vanessa Kirby’s pragmatically sensual Josephine. Scott makes this warring pair the Burton and Taylor of imperial France.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/HzZehCF
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Miracle Club review – Maggie Smith can’t save this rocky road trip to Lourdes

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

‘I lost a friend of almost 40 years’: Nancy Meyers pays tribute to Diane Keaton