Much ado about nothing

When Mani Ratnam, AR Rahman and Kamal Haasan come together, one would expect something momentous, but ‘Thug Life’ is nothing of the sort. It’s a tiresome retread of gangster films (even Mani Ratnam’s own ‘Thalapathy’ and ‘Nayakan’) and has nothing unique or novel to speak of.

Shaktivel Rangaraj (Haasan) and his older brother Manickam (Nassar) are gangsters who run extortion and assorted illegal rackets in Delhi. While they are in a meeting with rival gang leader Sadanand (Mahesh Manjrekar) in Chandni Chowk (which looks suspiciously like a chawl in Mumbai), they get ambushed by the police. Shaktivel escapes with a young boy, Amar, who gets orphaned in the melee.

Twenty-two years later, Amar (Silambarasan TR) takes on the reins of the gang after Shaktivel gets incarcerated. Manickam feels humiliated and thus are sown seeds of dissonance, leading to betrayal, murder and resurrection. To fill in the gaps and spice up things, there’s a love affair gone sour, suicide, several assassination attempts, inter-caste marriage, abortion and the much-married and visibly-aged Shaktivel’s sexual tryst with decades younger prostitute-cum-pop artist Indrani (Trisha).

In this Hindi dubbed version, the dialogues sound clipped, forced and awful. There’s nothing organic about it. Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan’s story is atrociously cliched and lacks bite. It plays out as routine and rudderless. The screenplay fails to throw up interesting scenarios, the plotting is messy and full of loopholes.

This first collaboration between Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan since the 1987 classic ‘Nayakan’ is plagued with inconsistent character arcs and subpar writing. Shaktivel is introduced as a “criminal, thug, Yakuza”, but there’s nothing impactful in the character. Unimpressive action, unimpactful drama and meaningless trivialities make the film tiresome.

The undercooked writing fails to generate enough friction between the opposing characters. There’s no emotional hook to speak of, even though the story is laden with filial face-offs. The lack of tension renders the narrative flat. Mani Ratnam’s helming is quite shoddy. It’s as though his heart was not in it. The decline in his storytelling craft is deeply felt. The pace is sedentary and the action, largely misleading, is quite ordinary. Other than a few stray sequences, everything feels like it’s been done before. There’s some style in this presentation, but the substance is missing.

Sreekar Prasad’s editing is patchy. Though the narrative jumps decades, the story feels like it’s missing many links. Shaktivel’s survival despite multiple assassination attempts, bullet injuries, fall, etc, doesn’t come across as realistic.

AR Rahman’s music is repetitive and stuck in the same old groove. His background score doesn’t do much for the filmed experience either. Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography and Sharmishta Roy’s production design may have done better if there was proper continuity in the craft.

The analogies about Delhi politics and criminality don’t sit well in a film that looks like most of its action was located in Mumbai, though the setting is supposedly Delhi. All the performances lack distinctiveness. It feels as though the actors were going through the motions as a matter of routine. Talented artistes like Ali Fazal, Rajshri Deshpande and Sanya Malhotra don’t register.

The metaphoric opening salvo, the black and white armed face-off, the sequence in Goa and the climax might generate some interest but overall, this gangster drama marks the severe deterioration of a talented team. Made on a budget crossing Rs 300 crore, this film is bound for failure at the box office.