Thug Life movie review: Imagine The Godfather as John Wick? Don’t wanna!

Kamal Haasan in Thug Life

Thug Life
U/A: Action, crime drama
Dir: Mani Ratnam
Actor: Kamal Haasan
Rating: 2/5

As a supposed underworld drama, Thug Life is essentially a Kamal Haasan movie, merely directed by Mani Ratnam. Which means a few things; at least one of them may not be so bad, after all.

Don't know about you, but I haven't quite enjoyed a Mani Ratnam film for the longest; barring, to a fair extent, O Kadhal Kanmani (2015), that was a decade ago, with a couple of more eggs (Kadal, Raavanan) laid even before that.

It's also the first time in 38 years that Tamil cinema's superstar and star-director have combined creative forces since their only outing together, with the much loved, Nayakan (1987). Why it took this long is beyond me, of course.

But the excitement over such a move can be explained better by looking at the movie itself, rather than audiences in my cinema. Haasan plays the don, of course - placed on the left, right, centre, back and front of this pic, altogether.

Consider the bearded, bulky bloke playing his random henchman, then - that's Joju George, who may well be India's least known, best actor, from Malayalam cinema, especially given his cop trilogy (Iratta, Nayattu, Joseph).

Or for that matter, India's homegrown Hollywood talent, Ali Fazal (Mirzapur's Guddu Bhaiya, down to Death on the Nile), who's totally okay with even less than a two-bit role. Let alone Sanya Malhotra (Dangal, Mrs, Kathal) shaking to a song, for 30 seconds.

In fact, most of the cast (STR, Ashok Selvan, Nassar, etc), on their own, comprise bona fide lead actors, surrendering themselves, at worst, to junior-artiste role/category - simply to somehow participate in a Haasan-Ratnam production!

Legacy is what legacy does. One by one, it's actually great to observe this line-up in the film's absolutely fine first half. Wherein the characters get introduced, while quirks of the hero, i.e. Sakthi (Haasan), gets established.

With a determined walk, revealing a muscular swag, Haasan plays a super veer/brave, virile sorta figure, equally devoted to his wife, and a young, besotted mistress/girlfriend (Trisha Krishnan) he's simultaneously in love with.

He's very much a family man in the mould of an underworld don, based in Delhi, taking along his brood, since blood matters the most still.

The script follows the time-tested tradition of revealing to audiences, first off, the ‘what'; as in, what it's about.

That is, this old man's fight with Yamraj (God of death), who he manages to beat each time. Haasan's character says it, in so many words, as the film opens.

Formally, starting off then with a superb shoot-out sequence, set in Delhi, 1994, shot in black & white, where he could've died first. You're aware, there will be many such sequences.

Then the script, equally early on, spells out the ‘how' of the film; as in, how will it carry on? The lovely line goes, "It's the curse of this city [Delhi]: son has killed father, brothers have killed each other [since history]."

So far so good. And Ratnam usually makes mainstream audiences feel good about their movie-tastes. That's been his main achievement over four decades!

Basically, what's being followed is an old rule of communication: ‘tell them, what you're gonna tell them; tell them; tell them, what you've told them!'

Except, the latter being the picture's post-interval parts that, as per another sacred rule of spoiler-alerts, I can't reveal to you at all!

Suffice it to share, you may not care. Which is when The Godfather descends to John Wick - just any other juvenile, high-octane actioner, dressed up as a magnificent, Madras mob-opera.

Why's that such a terrible thing? To which, I might wanna wonder aloud the difference between a fierce gangster, and an underworld don. It's in the same vein as a villain, and an anti-hero.

In the sense that the don, while defying state/society, becomes larger than life still, for what he offers the public around him. They root for him.

You can see crowds outside this mafiosi Rangaraya Sakthivel Nayakar (Sakthi's) home. You just don't know why. He's pretty much saving his own life, anyway; and no bullet can go past him, that's all.

Watch (if you haven't) and compare this to Ratnam's Nayakan, with Velu Naicker (Haasan), based on the Bombay underworld figure, Varadarajan Mudaliar (1926-1988).

That's when you figure, how devoid of social context this film feels - bumbling along, simplistically, as an episodic mini-series, with far too many frickin' characters, stepping in, stepping out, looking/feeling lost in an overboiled plot.

What good is a don in Delhi anyway, where the biggest of 'em from each part of India have held positions of power/parliament, over generations!

What you're left with then is basically a bunch of set-pieces or money-shots - helipads/helicopters, snow-capped mountains, deserts, car tackles/chases - placed across the world.

To a point that, you realise, if this movie didn't look so snazzily stylised, hence superficial/synthetic, you would've probably been able to connect with it, in parts.

But yeah, this is the kinda big-budget picture, stunt stuff, that audiences want, you know? I understand. The 1980s were no different, if not worse, actually.
Which is why Nayakan, super-hit in the same genre, stood out - for so successfully calling out the conventional commercial bluff!

For going deeper into the promised genre, instead, and taking audiences on a fairly internalised journey. And that lilting, Ilaiyaraaja background tune, Thenpandi cheemayile, that continues to haunt.

There was that ‘thehrav', a self-assured calmness to it all that, I'm told, translates to ‘amaidhi' in Tamil.

Of course, none of that even attempted here. But this has the ageless, agile Kamal Haasan, 70. He might be the only good thing in the film. He's also the only thing in it! Felt like a ‘Thugs of Hindostan' moment from Tamil Nadu to me.