Dhaakad review: Kangana Ranaut excels in this action film without a soul

Kangana Ranaut’s star began to rise with the 2014 comedy-drama Queen, which received acclaim and was a box office success. She has played the protagonist in a number of films since then, including the period action film Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi (2019). 

Razneesh 'Razy' Ghai's Dhaakad marks her return to the action genre but its stunts are vastly different from that of the 2019 biopic. The actress still excels at kicking the living daylights out of the bad guys and is convincing during emotional scenes. 

The actioner revolves around Agent Agni (Ranaut), an intelligence officer who carries out covert operations across the world at the behest of her handler (Saswata Chatterjee), who has looked after her ever since her father was killed during her childhood.

Agni’s next mission requires her to take down Rudraveer (Arjun Rampal) and Rohini (Divya Dutta). The duo have been running a sex trafficking racket in the guise of a coal mining operation in central India. At first, Agni is unwilling to return to India as the country brings back bad memories of her childhood. 

But after receiving a lot of encouragement from her boss, she eventually agrees. In India, she meets her fellow officer Fazal (Sharib Hashmi) and forms a bond with him and his little girl. 

While Ranaut, as an actress, puts her best foot forward, the same cannot be said about her script selection. 

Dhaakad has all the trappings of a Hollywood flick in terms of the action, gunfights, stunts, use of weapons and colour grading. But such technicalities do not make much of an impact if the content lacks soul and that’s exactly the issue with this film. 

We are not given enough information about Agent Agni’s life, except that her father was killed when she was a kid. This shortcoming, however, is somewhat papered over by Ranaut’s performance. 

But this isn't the case with the one-dimensional characters Rudraveer and Rohini, despite Rampal and Dutta trying their best. We are told that the duo has been running a sex trafficking business and killing people in various ways at will. But that’s about it.

And while most of the characters are seen indulging in hand-to-hand combat, firing bullets at each other and blasting things in India and abroad throughout the film, the local authorities are absent.  

By the time Dhaakad is over, one realizes that the writers didn’t have much of a story to tell. The film could have ended after Agni’s first encounter with the bad guys. If the makers could take inspiration from Hollywood in the technical department, they could have also trimmed the runtime to about 90 or 100 minutes. 

To fill up the time, the writers present an incident that is supposed to be shocking, but it isn’t, and follow it up with twists and turns that actually harm the film and give rise to confusion. There is a major twist related to the real motive of one of the pivotal characters but it hardly comes as a surprise. The narrative also leaves a few vital questions unanswered.

Along with Rampal and Dutta, Chatterjee also wows with his acting skills. Known for his iconic Kahaani (2012) character Bob Biswas, his appearance has changed a lot now. Hashmi once again wins you over with his sincerity and so does the child actress playing his daughter. 

But the performances, unfortunately, do not cancel out the film's major issues.