The much-awaited collaboration of writer-director Mani Ratnam and Dr. Padmashree Kamal Haasan, Thug Life, has released in the midst of hype because of the grand success of Nayagan—which is one of the highest-rated IMDb movies ever made in Tamil cinema. It is also often used as a reference for good film making. I wanted to set this background because Thug Life is the opposite. In a way it is a success too, because it clearly says how a movie should not be.
The movie just did not make sense.
The story is a Nayagan spin-off at a base level — the protagonist, raises a baby who turns out to be the villain which was so similar in Nayagan also. Also, how the acts of the protagonist—that is, Velu Naykar in Nayagan, or Rangarayan Shaktivel in Thug Life impacts not only their lives but also others both directly and indirectly.
Anyways, while watching Thug Life I had to remind myself that I am watching a Mani Ratnam film. A. R. Rahman's magical music—sarcasm indeed - appeared as if I was scrolling through some reels or stories, you know, where you see something as a video but the audio is completely disconnected. The scene would be something and the song would be something else altogether, which made no sense at all. It’s so disjoint that it’s so confusing. It’s actually irritating, to be very honest.
I even felt that the interval is misplaced, and the first half is almost one and a half hours long. The movie itself is two and a half hours long, so you can imagine. And the sad part is, the trailer gave away a lot. So there were absolutely no plot twists that could potentially keep us engaged.
Also, there was no Mani Ratnam signature. Of course, there was a train sequence, there were a couple of mirror sequences and all, but it just looked forced—like someone gave permission to Mani Ratnam that he could use them. It really didn’t look like a Mani Ratnam film. It looked more like a confused dialogue between Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan, and ultimately, both of them just decided, “Okay, let’s just do something and get over it.”
Even the editing—you know—it looked like sharp cuts rather than a seamless edit. I think the cinematographer has tried to manage the colors and the palette abs lighting. But after a point, the movie just looks stylized for the sake of it, rather than organically
Let's just say the screenplay is really lazy. It absolutely makes no sense.
A suicide in the beginning sets the tone of the film like that's the underlying reason, but it could have been any reason and it wouldn't have mattered. Then suddenly, Kamal Haasan strangely learns some martial arts from some Buddhist monks and therefore he is able to fight. I mean, isn't he a gangster? Shouldn't he ideally be known to fight? So there are all these small details that are thrown here and there, like how we throw some food to the birds and the birds come fluttering and they eat. But audience are not birds, you know. Like we're not waiting to be fed—or, I mean, we may be—but it has to make sense. It can't be random stuff, and this movie was random.
Kamal Haasan's acting? Okay, he has done a good job. I think it's a cakewalk kind of a role. I don’t think there was anything absolutely challenging for him. Abhirami, Trisha, Simbu, Joju, Nassar, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Vasivukkarasi, Ashok Selva—I mean the list is just too long. They all come and go. And out of nowhere, even Sanya Malhotra is dancing in the “Jingu Ja” song. But why? Its staging reminded me of the “Yaaro Yaaro Di” song in Alaipayuthey and “Sattru Munbu” song from Kaatru Veliyidai.
I have always appreciated director Mani Ratnam for risking it all and trying something new and different. If it fails, that's fine. But this movie looked like no attempt. It just looked like people got bored or they just knew from the beginning that something is wrong and they were just trying really hard to make it work. Maybe that just tells you why A. R. Rahman added four extra songs for the movie.
And the story is nothing new. And what is new, I would say, is... the derogatory projection of relationships, where men take the women for granted. That’s something I have not seen in Mani Ratnam films. That’s something new, because the character of Kamal Haasan is married to the character of Abhirami (Jeeva) and they have a daughter. But then he is also in an open relationship with the character of Trisha, named Indrani. There is a good background to it—you know, how she came into his life and all that—but that openness of it, and when the women are unhappy visibly, yet it is being conveniently ignored. Also the scenes with them involved a lot of groping, grabbing, biting, and whatnot. So it just appeared a little misplaced.
Even the action pieces seemed forced and uninspired.
As audience, we are forgiving. But at the same time, I felt that probably the screenplay is written more by Kamal Haasan than Mani Ratnam, because there was absolutely nothing Mani Ratnam-ish that I found in the movie. Maybe I had expected that, and because it was missing, I did not like it. And even otherwise, I don’t think it’s a great movie.
I would say you can give a gentle pass for the film. But if you want to put yourself into a self-inflicted torture just the way I did, please hop in and join the club!
