Introduction
I’m not a film critic.
I’m a student of neuroscience, psychology, storytelling, and human behaviour. So rather than evaluating the film as cinema, I found myself asking a different question:
Why did it connect so strongly with audiences?
Action sequences, visual effects, marketing campaigns, or star power alone can’t explain its success. Those elements may attract attention, but they don’t fully explain why millions of people become emotionally invested in a story.
Curiosity emerges when people recognize a gap between what they know and what they want to know, motivating continued attention until uncertainty is resolved (Loewenstein, 1994). Additionally, deep engagement with a compelling story resembles a flow state, in which attention becomes highly focused, and awareness of the external environment temporarily diminishes (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
The film didn’t trend because of its action sequences. It trended because millions recognized their own unspoken trauma in its shadowy world. In a country where mental-health conversations remain guarded, a violent film has become an accidental national therapy session.
Psychologists distinguish between individual trauma and collective trauma, where shared historical or social experiences shape the emotional responses of entire communities (Alexander et al., 2004).
Neuroscientific and psychological research suggests that fictional narratives can function as emotionally safe simulations, allowing individuals to process complex feelings indirectly. By organizing experiences into coherent stories, narratives support emotional regulation, autobiographical meaning-making, and memory integration (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999; Mar & Oatley, 2008; Van der Kolk, 2014).
The more interesting answer may lie in how effectively the film engaged the human mind and the brain behind great content.
Reconstructive media and postmodernism
The film exemplifies how contemporary cinema is evolving from a medium of passive storytelling into a reconstructive form of media that invites audiences to actively interpret, question, and co-create meaning.
Rooted in postmodernism, the film blends history, symbolism, emotion, and spectacle, blurring the boundaries between reality and representation. Rather than presenting a single narrative, it encourages multiple interpretations, making the viewing experience both intellectually engaging and emotionally immersive.
Neurocinema: Storytelling that engages the brain
Neurocinema examines how films influence attention, emotion, memory, and perception through the science of storytelling. The cinema reflects these principles by combining immersive visuals, rhythmic editing, evocative sound design, and emotionally charged performances to sustain engagement and deepen emotional impact. Rather than simply telling a story, the film creates a cognitive and emotional experience that resonates beyond the screen.
Research in neurocinematics has shown that well-crafted films can synchronize viewers’ attention and neural activity, producing remarkably similar patterns of perception and emotional engagement across audiences (Hasson et al., 2008).
The brain is wired for stories
From the science of storytelling, the film understood a timeless truth:
People don’t remember information — they remember stories.
Human beings have been using stories to transmit knowledge, values, and cultural identity for thousands of years. Stories provide structure to experience and help us make sense of a complex world.
Cognitive scientists have argued that narratives provide an organizational structure that makes information easier to encode, retrieve, and integrate with existing knowledge (Bruner, 1991; Schank & Abelson, 1995).
The film presented audiences with familiar narrative ingredients: conflict, sacrifice, patriotism, uncertainty, and a larger sense of purpose. These weren’t merely plot devices. They were psychological mechanisms that encouraged emotional investment.
Viewers weren’t simply watching events unfold. They were experiencing a narrative journey.
Dopamine and the brain’s reward system
Effective storytelling can engage the brain’s dopaminergic reward system by creating anticipation, uncertainty, and meaningful narrative payoffs. Dopamine is closely linked to motivation, curiosity, reward prediction, and learning rather than pleasure alone.
As audiences anticipate plot twists, solve narrative puzzles, or experience emotional resolutions, dopamine-related processes help sustain attention, reinforce memory, and increase emotional investment. In neurocinema, this makes storytelling more immersive, engaging, and memorable by encouraging viewers to remain cognitively and emotionally connected throughout the film.
Cognitive and behavioral traits of the characters
This involves examining how the characters think, feel, and behave through the lens of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. It looks at their attention, perception, decision-making, emotional regulation, motivation, memory, biases, resilience, and responses to conflict or uncertainty. Rather than simply describing a character’s actions, this approach explains the underlying mental processes that drive those actions and how audiences relate to them through empathy and identification.
Neuroscientists suggest that observing another person’s actions and emotions activates overlapping neural systems in the observer, helping explain why fictional characters can evoke genuine emotional responses (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004).
Neurons of nationalism
Films that evoke patriotism activate more than emotions — they engage neural processes involved in identity, belonging, empathy, and collective memory. Through powerful symbols, music, shared cultural narratives, and emotionally significant moments, cinema can strengthen a viewer’s sense of national identity and emotional connection to a larger community.
From a neurocinematic perspective, these experiences recruit brain networks associated with emotional processing, autobiographical memory, and social cognition, making patriotic narratives feel deeply personal rather than merely observed.
The film uses patriotic symbolism, emotionally charged storytelling, and collective narratives to foster a sense of shared purpose and belonging, demonstrating how cinema can influence not only what audiences think but also how they feel about national identity.
Identity: The psychology beneath the narrative
The psychology of identity played an equally important role.
Since 1947, the India-Pakistan relationship has occupied a significant place in the collective memory of the subcontinent. Decades of historical, political, and cultural narratives already existed within the minds of audiences before they entered the theatre.
The film inherited this emotional context.
In doing so, it activated one of humanity’s oldest psychological frameworks:
Us versus Them.
This aligns with Social Identity Theory, which proposes that individuals derive part of their identity and emotional meaning from membership in social groups, influencing attitudes, behaviour, and emotional engagement (Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
Social psychologists have long observed that individuals derive part of their identity from the groups to which they belong. When a story engages national identity, collective memory, or shared values, audiences often experience events on screen as personally meaningful rather than merely entertaining.
The psychology of violent spectacles
Throughout history, societies have been drawn to violent public spectacles. From gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome to public executions in certain parts of the world, such events have often attracted large audiences despite their brutality.
This raises an important question: why are people captivated by displays of extreme violence and suffering? Beyond their entertainment value, these spectacles have historically served as instruments of power, reinforcing the authority of rulers, shaping public perception, and demonstrating control through fear and dominance.
Catharsis
The film captured public attention not merely through its action but through its emotional intensity and psychological realism. For many viewers, the film reflects unspoken fears, moral conflict, loss, and resilience, creating a sense of personal connection that extends beyond the screen. In contexts where conversations about mental well-being often remain limited, emotionally powerful cinema can provide a space for reflection and emotional expression.
Psychologists have long observed that during periods of uncertainty or social change, audiences are often drawn to darker, emotionally charged narratives. This phenomenon aligns with Aristotle’s concept of catharsis, which describes the emotional release and insight that can emerge from witnessing suffering through art.
Contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research further suggests that immersive storytelling engages brain networks involved in emotion, empathy, attention, and memory, allowing viewers to process complex emotions within the psychological safety of fiction.
Attention: The most valuable resource
In neuroscience, attention is often described as a limited resource.
Cognitive neuroscience consistently shows that selective attention determines which sensory information reaches working memory and is subsequently encoded into long-term memory (Posner & Petersen, 1990; Chun, Golomb, & Turk-Browne, 2011).
Successful films understand this intuitively.
Through escalating stakes, suspense, uncertainty, and emotional tension, the narrative continually rewarded curiosity. Every new challenge encouraged audiences to keep asking:
What happens next?
Contemporary neuroscience proposes that the brain constantly generates predictions about future events. Stories that violate or delay these predictions create surprise, curiosity, and sustained attention (Friston, 2010).
What particularly stood out was the audio design.
Music, sound effects, pacing, rhythm, and even silence weren’t simply supporting the visuals. They were actively directing attention and shaping emotional responses.
The result was an experience that maintained engagement at both cognitive and emotional levels.
Emotion and memory: Why do some stories stay with us?
The architecture of memory offers another explanation.
Neuroscience research suggests that emotionally significant experiences are remembered far better than emotionally neutral ones. Emotional arousal influences memory consolidation, making certain moments more likely to remain accessible long after the experience ends.
Decades of neuroscience demonstrate that emotionally arousing experiences are consolidated more effectively than neutral experiences through interactions between the amygdala and hippocampus, increasing the durability of long-term memory (McGaugh, 2004; Phelps, 2004).
The film repeatedly leveraged powerful emotional themes:
- Patriotism
- Danger
- Sacrifice
- Triumph
- Loss
- Duty
These themes acted as memory anchors, increasing the likelihood that audiences would continue thinking about the story after leaving the theatre.
In simple terms, people often remember what made them feel something.
The power of worldbuilding
The film’s worldbuilding deserves equal credit.
Psychological research on narrative transportation suggests that immersive fictional worlds temporarily reduce awareness of the external environment while increasing emotional engagement and persuasion (Green & Brock, 2000).
It created a believable universe of intelligence networks, covert operations, strategic decision-making, and geopolitical tensions.
Effective worldbuilding does more than provide a backdrop for action. It creates psychological immersion.
Audiences weren’t merely observing characters. They were entering a world with its own rules, risks, and realities.
The stronger the immersion, the stronger the emotional investment.
The archetypes and anthropology of imagination
Another fascinating dimension lies in the anthropology of imagination.
Across cultures and civilizations, certain character patterns appear repeatedly in myths, legends, epics, and folklore.
The recurring appearance of heroes, protectors, and sacrificial figures across cultures reflects what Carl Jung described as archetypes — universal symbolic patterns that recur throughout human storytelling and imagination (Jung, 1968).
The film drew upon several enduring archetypes:
- The Warrior
- The Protector
- The Mission
- The Defender of one’s people
These archetypes continue to resonate because they reflect recurring themes within human culture and psychology.
Long before modern cinema existed, societies were telling versions of these stories around campfires, in temples, through poetry, and in epic literature.
The medium changes.
The underlying psychological patterns remain remarkably consistent.
Neurological impact of sound design
Sound is one of the most powerful tools for shaping the viewer’s brain activity. Music, silence, ambient sounds, rhythm, vocal tone, and sound effects influence attention, emotional arousal, anticipation, and memory.
Well-crafted sound design directs the audience’s focus, builds suspense, heightens emotional responses, and reinforces key narrative moments. From a neurocinematic perspective, sound doesn’t merely accompany the visuals — it actively shapes how viewers perceive, interpret, and remember the story.
Most people think a film’s story is carried by dialogue and visuals. But sound — music, silence, background noise — is quietly doing a huge amount of the emotional work.
Sometimes the trick isn’t matching the music to the mood — it’s clashing them on purpose.
The film does something similar — the trailer of the film is similarly juxtaposed against a romantic song by legendary singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Additionally, its most brutal, high-impact action scenes are juxtaposed with nostalgic 90s Bollywood songs, so the warmth and innocence of the music sits directly against the violence on screen, making the scene hit harder than either element would on its own.
Gamification and immersive storytelling
The film incorporates elements commonly associated with gamification, such as progressive challenges, clear objectives, escalating stakes, rewards, uncertainty, and moments of tension and release. These elements stimulate curiosity, sustain motivation, and encourage audiences to actively predict outcomes rather than passively consume the narrative.
When viewers become deeply immersed in a story, they experience what psychologists call narrative transportation, a state associated with greater emotional engagement, empathy, and lasting attitude change (Green & Brock, 2000).
Combined with immersive visuals, dynamic editing, and spatial sound design, they create a highly engaging experience that gives viewers a sense of presence within the story. From a neurocinematic perspective, this immersive engagement enhances attention, emotional investment, and memory formation, making the cinematic experience more impactful and memorable.
The Power of aphorism
Another reason the film lingers in the mind is its use of aphorism — short, memorable statements that distill complex ideas into a few words.
Neuroscience suggests that concise, emotionally meaningful phrases are easier for the brain to encode, retrieve, and recall because they reduce cognitive load while increasing emotional emphasis (Sweller, 1988; Kensinger & Corkin, 2003). Well-crafted aphorisms don’t merely sound profound; they become mental anchors that audiences revisit long after the film ends.
When combined with compelling visuals, they strengthen both memory and meaning, transforming dialogue into lasting wisdom. This subtle interplay between storytelling and aphoristic thinking is one of cinema’s most powerful narrative tools.
So, is it great cinema?
Not necessarily.
One could argue that the film is a fairly conventional commercial masala entertainer.
Yet that’s precisely what makes its success so interesting.
Its effectiveness may not stem from cinematic innovation alone. Rather, it emerges from how successfully it engages core psychological mechanisms that shape human experience.
Whether these principles were applied consciously or unconsciously, the film managed to activate storytelling, identity, attention, memory, imagination, and emotion simultaneously.
And that’s no small achievement.
Conclusion
Technology creates spectacle.
Psychology creates a connection.
Modern neurocinematic research increasingly suggests that successful films synchronize viewers’ attention, emotions, and cognitive processing, helping explain why certain stories achieve widespread cultural impact (Hasson et al., 2008).
As filmmaking increasingly embraces AI, virtual production, immersive media, and emerging AVGC-XR technologies, technical mastery will remain important. But understanding how the human mind processes stories, emotions, identities, and memories may be equally valuable.
Stories reduce cognitive load by organizing complex information into coherent causal structures, allowing viewers to process meaning more efficiently than disconnected facts (Sweller, 1988).
The future of entertainment won’t belong solely to those who build better tools.
It may belong to those who better understand the minds experiencing them.
