Thug Life

I didn’t get to catch Thug Life in theatres, thanks to the controversy sparked by Kamal Haasan’s comments about the Tamil-Kannada language connection. It didn’t get a theatrical release in Karnataka. In hindsight, it was a poorly thought-out statement that ignited a pointless feud between two neighbouring states. But that’s a saga for another blog. Thug Life is now on Netflix, and I finally watched it. Short version: I’m disappointed. Not just because it’s a dull slog — though it absolutely is — but because I could see the glimmer of potential in the material Mani Ratnam had in his head, yet he didn’t go all in. It feels like Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan had a mid-production crisis of confidence, veering off into drastic detours that left us with a film stuffed with half-baked artistic flourishes.

“You saved me from death. From now on, you and me are one,” says Kamal Haasan in one of the most strikingly shot scenes from Mani Ratnam’s ‘Thug Life’. The dialogue, albeit simple, has a profound touch to it. As the story progresses, you realise he meant what he said. Kamal Haasan’s Rangaraya Sakthivel and Silambarasan’s Amar are indeed one. But, what causes a rift between them in this world of thugs? Mani Ratnam’s ‘Thug Life’ aims to present a full-blown gangster drama rooted in this very question. Rangaraya Sakthivel (Kamal Haasan) is a gangster in New Delhi and has a bunch of trusted aides, all recruited and raised by Manikkam (Nasser). An encounter leads to the death of a local newspaper vendor. Sakthivel, who is deeply disturbed to see the newspaper vendor’s son, Amar, takes him and raises him as his own son (Silambarasan) along with his wife Jeeva (Abhirami).

In 1987, the collaboration between Mani Ratnam and Kamal Hassan resulted in Nayakan, which continues to be regarded as the benchmark for gangster films in India and has influenced numerous subsequent films in that genre.

You know Mani Ratnam’s Thug Life movie is about to go off the rails (in the best way) when it opens with Kamal Haasan solemnly standing in a field, musing about death and how he has been shadowed by Yamraj (the Hindu god of death and justice) for ages. From there, we are hurled through revenge arcs and philosophical showdowns. And that’s just the first hour. Let’s explore the Thug Life movie story and ending of the Kamal Haasan movie, which is explained here. The film, after that prologue, begins with a monochrome Old Delhi in the 1990s. We learn that Kamal Haasan (perhaps digitally de-aged, perhaps not) plays the role of Sakthivel, a crime lord who rules a section of Old Delhi with his brother. Their chief rival is Sadanand (Mahesh Manjrekar). The scene begins with a parley between Sadanand and the brothers at the latter’s place. But the parley is a ruse, for as soon as Sadanand leaves, armed police (presumably on his payroll) enter the premises and there is a shootout.

Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam- two stalwarts coming together in a film is a cinematic event in itself. The highly anticipated film Thug Life, which marks the collaboration of the two legends after 37 years, is finally here. Expectations, thus, were high for this one from the time the film was announced. But Haasan, who also serves as a co-writer and co-producer of the film, delivers a middling performance in a formulaic film that is spruced with well-known actors, both from the south as well as the north. Ratnam, who is considered one of the best auteurs in the country, always has managed to make warm, emotional, and gritty dramas. Each of his movies has the distinct mark of the filmmaker, which is hard to emulate. Thug Life, however , seems to be more of a massy drama which doesn’t particularly have any distinct stamp of the filmmaker.

What a wonderful world it would be if Tamil and Telugu commercial directors could apply their considerable talents to telling concise, coherent stories. The bloat is out of control. I’m not just talking about the dozen retrofitted plots of Kalki 2898 AD or the maddening detours of Pushpa 2. Even smart, funny films like Jigarthanda DoubleX stretch their material unduly. I admit this isn’t a widely held opinion. Audiences today clearly like the mess. As luck would have it, the wrong director decided to simplify. Thug Life is Mani Ratnam at his most basic. This isn’t to say he’s made a terrible film—it’s just not the film you’d expect Ratnam, comfortably established as the preeminent popular director of the past 40 years, to make at 69. In his previous two films, Ponniyin Selvan: I and its sequel, he created a rich, teeming world and asked audiences to keep up. No one will have any problem following Thug Life, a remarkably linear tale for an industry that loves flashbacks and wrong-footing the viewer.

Late in this sprawling and disappointingly inconsistent gangster saga, the male protagonist, badly wounded, asks a doctor about the exact nature of the injection that she is about to administer. She lets on that the fluid in the syringe is a sedative guaranteed to lull him to sleep. Mani Ratnam’s Thug Life may not be as soporific as that but large swathes of it could certainly have done with targeted shots of stimulants. Thug Life isn’t quite the kind of film that you expect to be a huge disappointment. In an era in which scepticism, even trepidation, precedes the decision to watch a movie that has blockbuster aspirations, a Mani Ratnam movie, no matter what genre it belongs to, is usually an exception. It generates both anticipation and excitement.