The Thugs of Tamil Cinema pack a Weak Punch | Thuglife Movie Review
- FC Team
- Jun 7
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 1
Thug Life starts with Kamal Hassan with wild tresses and grey robes, resembling a Samurai on the verge of giving up arms. The story takes off from there, with Rangaraya Sakthivel, played by Kamal Hassan, narrating his story.
The de-aged young Kamal Hassan riles up the audience, as the technology showed one of the Greatest Actors time travel to one of his greatest hits Naayagan. The audience were hooked and wildly envisioned Rangaraya Sakthivel, a product of the best facets of Kamal Hassan, the Actor.
The first half flows like a sharp knife gliding into a silk scabbard. Amar, played by Silambaran, is a troubled youth, living under the tutelage of the perpetrator who stole his life. Rangaraya Sakthivel and Amaran sharing a few quiet words while burying his dead father showed irony, vulnerability, guilt, misery, all in one frame.
The empty eyes and the half-hearted smiles define his character. Amaran walks and talks like a loner in deep thought, wondering how his life would have panned out had Sakthivel's men spared his father's life.
Mani Ratnam known for bringing to life the unspoken truths, used Silambaran as his favourite muse in the film.
There is beauty in broken things. One such things is, Indrani, played by Trisha. Playing the second woman in Rangaraya Sakthivel's life, Trisha adds her own charm and grace to it. Mani Ratnam played bold by adding his own theory to illegitimate relationships, calling it a "man's disease". A Masterstroke. He made the affair as raw and real as Sakthivel's relationship with his wife, Jeeva, played by Abhirami.
Abhirami's snide remarks being well aware of Sakthivel's affairs and Indrani's quiet tears after her lover walks away to his real life, left the audience frothing in the mouth, wanting more.
The commonality between the two women is their undying love for their man. Mani Ratnam holds the sceptre in dialogue writing as he wins the sympathy of audience for both the women by adding lines like Abhirami's "Bombay-kaari" referring to Sakthivel's affair and Indrani's "Tell me, you love me".
Trisha's house help, played by Vadivu Karasi, and her graphic monologue of the things she has hard behind Trisha's closed doors describe Sakthivel and Indrani's relationship to the audience in less than a minute.
Mani Ratnam is hailed as a Genius Filmmaker for these little glimmers he conjures out of thin air. Sadly, the fireworks end with the first half.
The power struggles between the brothers and the henchmen playing spoilsport. take us back to the 80s' unwillingly.
Thug Life is a proof that overdone nostalgia will leave the audience uninspired.
The much-awaited face-off between the Sakthivel and Amaran lands soft as the plot withers to a classic You too Brutus betrayal. Amaran remains a mystery throughout the film. He is unsure about his life, dreams, motives as he is lost within a web of painful memories. Conveyed in a milli-second screenshot of his phone with a wallpaper of his fallen family - dead father, lost sister.
The second half takes the predictable route of a defeated Kingpin, out for blood. The Buddhist monks who nurse him back to health and train him in Martial Arts and leave his hunger for revenge intact. Wild hair, unkempt beard and greyed robes add no glimmer to the storyline.
Silambarasan shifting base from Delhi and Goa, embracing an an opulent life felt like a middle page from a screenwriting guide. The scene in which Amaran professes his undying love to Trisha, while she mourns for the life she had lost for lustful men, was poetry.
The starcast with limited screen time shine the brightest - Ashok Selvan, Abhirami and Trisha.
Ashok Selvan taking the biggest bite out of crumbs, showed his acting prowess in a measured glass. The audience thoroughly missed Abhirami and Mangai, Sakthivel's daughter, played by Sanjana Krishnamoorthy, in the second half. The post interval sequences drenched in blood needed few moments of familiar faces and silence to balance out the revenge narrative.
The waiting game ends after the revenge is almost complete, sparing Amaran. Their face-off in the climax, with a surprise twist in the end, falls flat as the audience have predicted Mani Ratnam's screenplay leading to the climax flawlessly.
Thug Life was promoted as a homecoming of the Greatest Artists of Tamil Cinema collaborating after 37 years. The film took off into the starry skies, promising an uncharted journey, only to abruptly turn into familiar landscapes of a Revenge-Drama.
Though the movie had high moments with the finest performers of South Indian Film industry, battling to become Mani Ratnam's jewelstone, the seasoned director shocked the audience. As this one time, he chose to play by the book.
The theme of the film, futility of violence, was left unattended in a crowd of violent jostling.
Rumours are abuzz that Netflix is in talks with Madras Talkies and Raajkamal Productions to renegotiate the OTT price of Thug Life. This news is not verified by major print or online publications.
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