Mani Ratnam has always been a director who has kept up with the trend over the years, delivering films that have pulled in audiences in large numbers for his drama, charecterisations, unique POV on usual plots and more. And he arrives with his next in Thug Life, which is another take of his in the gangster world.
When Mani Ratnam made Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, it stood out as an interesting take on the world of gangsters and their problems, arising proper drama between the characters. But unfortunately, the director is not able to repeat the same magic in Thug Life, where he abides by a done-to-death storyline and adds multiple strokes which turn out to be too usual, repetitive or regressive in their own ways. Thug Life is a very straightforward story of how a man makes a mistake, tries to correct it in his own way, only to realize that he is going to have his fingers burnt. But this story, which could have been told in an interesting manner, gathers no momentum from its weird and bizarre writing choices, lack of high moments and stale staging that make it very shocking to see, coming from the greats involved in the project.
Thug Life has a pretty good first half that sets things in motion pretty well, introducing the characters and giving them a good scene each. But it is in the second half where almost everything falters, as Thug Life doesn’t move a bit in terms of the sense and screenplay it has, bringing things to a halt for the film.
The film has Kamal Haasan and STR doing good things for it, but soon in the second half, their performances feel all over the place and there is a lack of consistency in it. Trisha and Abhirami have two of the most peculiar roles ever written by Mani Ratnam, and actors like Ashok Selvan and Aishwarya Lekshmi have great presence in the very minimal screen time that they have.
AR Rahman and the technical team give Thug Life the maximum that they can do, and it does help the film move ahead in some way or the other, though not a perfect fit to the proceedings.
On the whole, Thug Life is a moderately effective film that falls short of expectations. It has sparks of energy but lacks the finesse and form that we have got from a director like Mani Ratnam over the years.
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