Rangaraaya Sakthivel, the central character of the movie Thug Life, is actually a callback to the Mani Ratnam-Kamal Haasan classic Nayakan. And if you look at the story of this movie, you can see that it almost feels like a different imagination of the same Naicker story. They are transferring various traumas to different characters. Certain character dynamics, moments, and the pattern in which certain locations come in this movie would remind you of some of the elements that were there in Nayakan. Having said that, Thug Life is not trying to make its hero as vulnerable as Velu Naicker, and hence, Mani Ratnam is constantly ramping up the momentum with exhilarating action blocks or confrontations. All this sort of makes you acknowledge the clever placement of emotions in the screenplay, but the crowdedness does not allow you to feel the pain or anger.
The story primarily focuses on the year 2016, where we see Rangaraaya Sakthivel, a major Gangster in Delhi, having to go to jail as part of something he did. While leaving for jail, Sakthivel gives Amaran, an orphan whom he raised like his own son, the power of attorney for his empire. This decision had its impact on the gang as Sakthivel’s elder brother Manickam felt insulted. The long-term repercussions of this power shift are what we see in Thug Life.
Thug Life is not devoid of Mani Ratnam’s signature elements. The staging of the scenes has that precision, and the movie is trying to create drama using visuals. Sometimes, it is a particular location, and sometimes, it is the way the characters are positioned in a scene. In Nayakan, the first-floor open window of Velu Naicker’s house witnessed a lot of tragedies. In Thug Life, we can see a similar visual element in the form of a door. This time, it is not Sakthivel who is at the receiving end of trauma. The fact that Amar is the one playing that part and Kamal Haasan has said that this movie was based on a script he wrote with the title Amar Hain made me wonder whether the initial idea was a modern-day version of Nayakan with Amar.
The script here has that fluency as we see one event leading to another, and parallelly, tensions build inside the gang and against the gang. The slight broad stroke feel of the writing is reduced as Mani Ratnam shows the character equations in that semi-humorous, raw way. The issue I felt with Thug Life was the way it ignored the grey space. The relationship Sakthivel shares with Indrani (played by Trisha), the reason why Sakthivel took Amar with him, etc., had that Nayakan-like “Are you good or bad?” kind of texture. But rather than making the hero question his life choices, Thug Life stays away from those complications. Sometimes, it is almost like the script is restricting itself from going to such spaces. There is a sequence in the second half where the health condition of someone dear to Sakthivel makes him break down, but the next moment, the film abruptly transitions into your mass hero background score elevation.
Ravi K Chandran uses a very cinematic, stylish visual aesthetic in the earlier parts of the movie where we see this de-aged Kamal Haasan and Sathyaa-like Kamal Haasan. When it comes to the second half, where we see the long-haired version of Rangaraaya Sakthivel, the film feels more raw and that is mostly because almost all characters are in an emotional space. The kind of God-Father-inspired juxtaposing edits that were there in Nayakan are getting recreated in Thug Life as well. But it had an underwhelming impact. Other than Jinguchaa, I don’t think none of the other tracks are getting featured in its full length. The placement of the excerpts of Anju Vanna Poove was done perfectly. The Vinveli Nayaga score had a solid impact in certain elevation scenes. The green screen sequences in the movie really stood out in a bad way.
The film offers Kamal Haasan to perform a wide range of emotions. You get to see him as this gangster leader with swagger, and we also see his two versions of romance. And in the second half, we see the vulnerable bits of that character. Silambarasan as Amar has a lot of interesting combination scenes with Mr. Haasan in the first half of the movie. His character undergoes a major shift in the second half, and the performance in those areas is underwhelming. Abhirami as Jeeva and Trisha as Indrani were convincing choices for their respective roles. Joju George gets a memorable role as Malayali Pathros. Ashok Selvan’s character pretty much becomes insignificant in the totality of the whole thing. It should have been a character equivalent to the one Nassar played in Nayakan. Nassar, Sanjana Krishnamoorthy, Baghavathy Perumal, Rohit Saraf, Ali Fazal, etc., are the other major names, along with Aishwarya Lekshmi, whose performance got the backing of good dubbing.
Thug Life, on a story level, has the potential to explore these Shakespearian ideas against the setting of a gangster world. And to an extent, it is able to set up that world. However, the commercial movie demands are reducing the space for it to give enough time to each character. And the elaborate nature of the story makes it look like an overloaded drama. If you are a fan of the way Mani Ratnam establishes drama in scenes through visuals, I would say Thug Life has enough to keep you interested in it, but the overall impact is middling.
