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

Thug LifeUA Action crime dramaDir Mani RatnamActor Kamal HaasanRating 25As 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 allDonrsquot know about you but I havenrsquot 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 thatItrsquos also the first time in 38 years that Tamil cinemarsquos superstar and stardirector have combined creative forces since their only outing together with the much loved Nayakan 1987 Why it took this long is beyond me of courseBut 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 mdash placed on the left right centre back and front of this pic altogetherConsider the bearded bulky bloke playing his random henchman then mdash thatrsquos Joju George who may well be Indiarsquos least known best actor from Malayalam cinema especially given his cop trilogy Iratta Nayattu JosephOr for that matter Indiarsquos homegrown Hollywood talent Ali Fazal Mirzapurrsquos Guddu Bhaiya down to Death on the Nile whorsquos totally okay with even less than a twobit role Let alone Sanya Malhotra Dangal Mrs Kathal shaking to a song for 30 secondsIn fact most of the cast STR Ashok Selvan Nassar etc on their own comprise bona fide lead actors surrendering themselves at worst to juniorartiste rolecategory mdash simply to somehow participate in a HaasanRatnam productionLegacy is what legacy does One by one itrsquos actually great to observe this lineup in the filmrsquos absolutely fine first half Wherein the characters get introduced while quirks of the hero ie Sakthi Haasan gets establishedWith a determined walk revealing a muscular swag Haasan plays a super veerbrave virile sorta figure equally devoted to his wife and a young besotted mistressgirlfriend Trisha Krishnan hersquos simultaneously in love withHersquos very much a family man in the mould of an underworld don based in Delhi taking along his brood since blood matters the most stillThe script follows the timetested tradition of revealing to audiences first off the lsquowhatrsquo as in what itrsquos aboutThat is this old manrsquos fight with Yamraj God of death who he manages to beat each time Haasanrsquos character says it in so many words as the film opensFormally starting off then with a superb shootout sequence set in Delhi 1994 shot in black amp white where he couldrsquove died first Yoursquore aware there will be many such sequencesThen the script equally early on spells out the lsquohowrsquo of the film as in how will it carry on The lovely line goes ldquoItrsquos the curse of this city Delhi son has killed father brothers have killed each other since historyrdquoSo far so good And Ratnam usually makes mainstream audiences feel good about their movietastes Thatrsquos been his main achievement over four decadesBasically whatrsquos being followed is an old rule of communication lsquotell them what yoursquore gonna tell them tell them tell them what yoursquove told themrsquoExcept the latter being the picturersquos postinterval parts that as per another sacred rule of spoileralerts I canrsquot reveal to you at allSuffice it to share you may not care Which is when The Godfather descends to John Wick mdash just any other juvenile highoctane actioner dressed up as a magnificent Madras moboperaWhyrsquos that such a terrible thing To which I might wanna wonder aloud the difference between a fierce gangster and an underworld don Itrsquos in the same vein as a villain and an antiheroIn the sense that the don while defying statesociety becomes larger than life still for what he offers the public around him They root for himYou can see crowds outside this mafiosi Rangaraya Sakthivel Nayakar Sakthirsquos home You just donrsquot know why Hersquos pretty much saving his own life anyway and no bullet can go past him thatrsquos allWatch if you havenrsquot and compare this to Ratnamrsquos Nayakan with Velu Naicker Haasan based on the Bombay underworld figure Varadarajan Mudaliar 19261988Thatrsquos when you figure how devoid of social context this film feels mdash bumbling along simplistically as an episodic miniseries with far too many frickinrsquo characters stepping in stepping out lookingfeeling lost in an overboiled plotWhat good is a don in Delhi anyway where the biggest of rsquoem from each part of India have held positions of powerparliament over generationsWhat yoursquore left with then is basically a bunch of setpieces or moneyshots mdash helipadshelicopters snowcapped mountains deserts car tackleschases mdash placed across the worldTo a point that you realise if this movie didnrsquot look so snazzily stylised hence superficialsynthetic you wouldrsquove probably been able to connect with it in partsBut yeah this is the kinda bigbudget picture stunt stuff that audiences want you know I understand The 1980s were no different if not worse actuallyWhich is why Nayakan superhit in the same genre stood out mdash for so successfully calling out the conventional commercial bluffFor 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 hauntThere was that lsquothehravrsquo a selfassured calmness to it all that Irsquom told translates to lsquoamaidhirsquo in TamilOf 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 Hersquos also the only thing in it Felt like a lsquoThugs of Hindostanrsquo moment from Tamil Nadu to me