With Dhurandhar: The Revenge becoming a massive hit in Tamil Nadu, drug case accused DMK-linked Dravidian Stock director Ameer Sultan has been ranting about the film's story and content.
The film, which lays bare Pakistan's nexus of drugs and terrorism and the Islamist hostility toward those deemed "infidels," appears to have struck a nerve with Ameer Sultan.
In an interview to a YouTube channel Ameer Sultan seems to be having problems with an Indian spy working against Pakistan for India's interests.
"Recently a movie called Dhurandhar has released. A big hit! Wow. A patriotic film. One man goes from here and he struggles there (Pakistan) with terrorist gangs. That man is a nationalist! Entering another country and deceiving them is nationalism. If someone comes from there (Pakistan) to India, he's a spy. If our guy goes to Pakistan, he's a patriot. If he (Pakistani) comes here, he's a spy for us but he's a patriot there. How should one prove his patriotism? Who is deciding this?", he says.
He further goes on to express his displeasure with people supporting India during India-Pakistan match.
"During an India-Pakistan match, if you support India, it is considered patriotism. You can't enjoy the game. You can't admire a player. You've to admire only your country!", he says in the interview.
Commenting on Dhurandhar: The Revenge, Ameer Sultan ranted that ever since Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, cinema has increasingly been leveraged for political messaging rather than pure entertainment. He claimed a pattern has emerged where films and media are used to advance the ruling party's ideology-citing movies like The Kerala Story and The Kashmir Files as examples that project a Hindutva narrative and bolster the BJP, while portraying the Indian National Congress as weak and led by a "puppet" prime minister."
He also called Nambi Narayanan as a man accused of leaking military secrets and said that films are being made on him in a heroic light, discounting the fact that the Supreme Court had held that Narayanan was "unnecessarily arrested and harassed" and ordered the Kerala government to pay him ₹50 lakh as compensation for mental cruelty and loss of dignity.