Good Bad Ugly

Adhik Ravichandran’s cinema is a genre unto itself—it’s not so much a film as a rave party. And like all parties, some are more intoxicated than others. It’s not a space for nuanced conversations or emotional coherence. At any given moment, someone’s dying in slow motion, as we laugh and cheer or both. A moment later, the protagonist (AK, played by—you know who) is making soft, sorrowful eyes, while his wife makes the strange transitions between gratitude and anger. This isn’t a flaw with the film; this is its mood. Loud music, neon lights, stylised violence, dancing, homages—everyone’s high on one thing: stardom. Specifically, Ajith Kumar’s. If you should not really be one with the crowd, well, GBU, maamey.

Here’s a social experiment. Pick someone who is unaware of the beats of the hero worship and masala film in Indian cinema. Scratch that. Let’s pick Tamil cinema because the beast is almost unrecognisable at this point as the concept of stardom is nearing, if not an end, at least a lull. Ageing male stars fall back on their history, and idolising filmmakers lean on intertextuality to create hysterical theatrical moments. Show them Adhik Ravichandran’s new film with Ajith Kumar, Good Bad Ugly, and ask if there is any possibility that this is a spoof or a parody. They will most likely answer in the affirmative. To the innocent bystander, Good Bad Ugly comes across as a spoof, as if CS Amudhan made another Thamizh Padam (2010) solely focusing on Ajith and his career. The greatest trick Adhik ever pulled is convincing Ajith and maybe the audience that he is making a fan service film. What he’s really done instead is lampoon the star for two hours and twenty minutes. But again, it really depends on who you ask.

One is unsure if it’s even ethical to call Good Bad Ugly a feature film. From a safe distance, one can argue that it’s the length of a regular movie and it also features a major movie star in the lead. If you want to push it, one may even argue that it has a something resembling a plot and a screenplay that holds characters and plot points in place. But if you’re willing to wake up and accept reality, you’ll soon realise that Good Bad Ugly is just the Instagram Reels homepage of Ajith’s most obsessive fanboy. Directed by Adhik Ravichandran, the film doesn’t even try to worry about delicately breaking the fourth wall; this Ajith fanboy ends up shooting so many references from the star’s filmography at us, that he nukes the fourth wall and builds a grand tomb over it.

Who knew that a character sending a specific someone’s photo on a WhatsApp group would make for one of the ‘massiest’ sequences we have seen in recent times? Director Adhik Ravichandran, who, over the last ten years, has gotten us used to his use of bright colours, dutch-angle shots and quirky humour, takes it up a notch with his fifth film Good Bad Ugly (GBU), and with his idol Ajith Kumar headlining it, the young filmmaker pulls off what netizens would term as a “fanboy sambavam.” In GBU, AK (Ajith Kumar) is a retired gangster who has spent his due share of time behind bars and wants to lead a happy life with his wife, Ramya (Trisha), and son, Vihaan (Karthikeya Dev). But trouble comes knocking his way when his son is wrongly arrested and put behind bars. For the sake of the very son for whom he put down arms, AK now has to enter a world he vowed never to return to.

Days before the massive release of ‘Good Bad Ugly, the makers dropped a fun-max trailer. It was deliciously cut and featured old film references and songs of Ajith Kumar, giving the much-needed high. Naturally, the trailer got the fans excited. After the subdued ‘Vidaamuyarchi’, how exciting would it be to see Ajith Kumar transform into a ‘bad boy’? Did the film deliver what the trailer promised? Let’s find out! AK (Ajith Kumar) plays the invincible gangster Red Dragon in Mumbai. When his wife Ramya (Trisha) gives birth to their son, Vihaan, she refuses to let him touch the baby and instructs him to correct all his mistakes and meet them as Ajith Kumar, not as Red Dragon. For AK, family is of the utmost importance. He quits all his illegal activities and surrenders to the police, agreeing to serve 18 years in prison.

At one point in Good Bad Ugly, Ajith Kumar breaks the fourth wall to directly interact with director Adhik Ravichandran behind the camera. There is no precedence for such a style of filmmaking before and after this scene, and it is a random outlier in a film that revels in its nonchalance and throwing caution to the wind. This scene might not necessarily fit into the story about a gangster-in-exile returning to his old ways to save his son. However, Adhik treats Good Bad Ugly with so much irreverence that this is the least of the outlandish aspects of the film. There is a cameo and a throwback that comes out of nowhere. But we’ll get there in a while.

Good Bad Ugly once again reiterates that Adhik Ravichandran is perhaps the most campy filmmaker in Tamil cinema today. His eccentric ideas and characters make him one of the most unique voices in the mainstream commercial space, where creative sparks have been dwindling. Sengal Psycho from Trisha Illena Nayanthara, Switch Psycho from Anbanavan Adangadhavan Asaradhavan, and Chiranjeevi from Mark Antony embody the eccentricity that defines Adhik’s sensibilities. For those who can tap into the madness in such writing, the uniqueness of this director, despite its waywardness, becomes thoroughly enjoyable.