Thug Life Review: Kamal Haasan's Film Definitely Needed More Life

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.

You expect the world from Thug Life especially because it is the first Mani Ratnam-Kamal Haasan collaboration since the duo delivered Nayakan (1987), a film that remains a benchmark for Indian gangster dramas, as well as owing to the cinematic riches that were on full display in the writer-director's last project - the two parts of Ponniyin Selvan. Thug Life is no patch on either Nayakan or PS. It delivers adrenaline rushes only in dribs and drabs.

Expectations are raised by a stylised introduction, with Kamal Haasan doing the Hindi dub himself in a gravelly voice that goes well with the ambience of the film. It has the protagonist, Rangaraya Sakthivel, declare - as silhouettes of armed men advance towards him - that he is engaged in a lifelong battle against the spectre of death. Likening himself to a yakuza, he says: "Yamraj aur mere beech ki kahaani hain."

No, this isn't Bergman. There is no room here for the free-flowing cinematic conceit of a medieval knight taking on a spectral personification of Death at a game of chess. Everything that Thug Life mounts - its broad themes centre on fraternity, fealty and bad faith - is outright literal. Within the limitations of its what-you-see-is-what-you-get construct, the film does manage occasionally spring to life, thanks to the technical virtuosity that Ratnam informs the enterprise with. But that is the least you expect from him.

The black-and-white sequence that follows the sharply rendered prelude - it centres on a shootout between the police and a criminal gang inside a crumbling Old Delhi building, sets a solid stage for the action to come two decades and a bit later. What unfolds during the gunfight involving a de-aged Kamal Haasan is central to the plot - it comes back to haunt the hero when he begins to lose control of his life, family and gang.

The first half of Thug Life lives up to the promise for the most part as it resorts to unconventional lensing (DOP: Ravi K Chandran), editing (editor: A Sreekar Prasad) and bright directorial touches to tell a story of power, betrayal and vengeance buoyed by bravura performances from Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan TR.

Kamal Haasan is a combination of fire and ice. Silambarasan TR brings strong screen presence and intense energy to bear upon his role. But barring these two central figures, the characters are rather sketchily etched.

Despite the erratic plotting, Joju George (as a surly gangster), Trisha Krishnan, Abhirami and Nasser as the protagonist's elder brother and one-time guardian do find their places under the sun. Rajshri Deshpande, in the guise of the silent, suffering sister of a Delhi mafia don, has only a handful of scenes (mostly without spoken lines) and yet makes her presence felt.

Post-interval, Thug Life plummets precipitously, lurching from one awkward scene to another when fraternal ties begin to fray and a revelation and a mistress combine to drive a wedge between a mentor-guardian and a trusted lieutenant, an orphaned boy raised with love and care.

Madam, I am your only Adam, says Sakthivel to Indrani (Trisha), a woman he mistakes for Amaran's (Silambarasan) long-lost kid sister and proceeds to make her his mistress to the obvious and repeatedly expressed chagrin of his wife, Jeeva (Abhirami).

Big trouble erupts when two brothers, one adoptive and the other biological, decide to make common cause and lay claim to what they believe is rightfully theirs. One is driven by the desire to settle scores. The other yearns for respect. Complex dynamics of kinship and loyalty come into play as a tussle for control sows seeds of distrust and makes Sakthivel and his men vulnerable to the machinations of a rival gang led by Sadanand (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his nephew (Ali Fazal).

Sakthivel, as revealed early in the film, stares death in the face on a number of occasions and not only dodges mortality but also emerges from the encounter stronger and more determined. He survives a fall into a snow-covered gorge, a deadly avalanche, an explosion and several bullet wounds and dislocations. But nothing that he faces is anything that a bit of luck and some help from unexpected quarters cannot counter.

Yes, the biggest surprises in Thug Life do not stem as much from Ratnam's visual and dramatic flair as from the death-defying exploits of the hero. Had this not been from a director who believes in combining grand heroic feats with a certain degree of realism, Sakthivel would have always emerged from the precipice of death unscathed or, at best, with minor bruises. He does not. He does have gashes and broken bones to show for the ordeals that he is dragged through.

But, every time he is laid low, he returns to the thick of the action (after a brief pause) with renewed vigour. He fires on more cylinders than before. By the end of it all, he is well-nigh invincible, a modern-day, urban, underworld knight endowed with an invisible shield of indomitability.

Unfortunately, Thug Life is only a film. It isn't a tough-as-nails and unstoppable crime lord, as thought by the screenwriters. So, it does not possess Sakthivel's regenerative power. Once the core of its central idea begins to wear thin as a result of being stretched to snapping point, not even Mani Ratnam's style and Kamal Haasan's presence are enough to pull the bacons out of the fire. Thug Life definitely needed more life.