Forget Thug Life, there is always Nayakan to remember Kamal Haasan-Mani Ratnam

So, Thug Life landed with a thud. With a lot of noise and nothing much to show for it.

The reviews have not been kind, audiences have called it a betrayal of what they felt should have been a masterpiece crafted by the Kamal Haasan-Mani Ratnam-A.R. Rahman troika. The way Thug Life has shaped up, it may not even measure up as a run-of-the-mill gangster movie, let alone being another masterpiece from Kamal-Mani.

Which is downright unfortunate. As someone who has watched just about every Kamal Haasan movie ever made, I can’t escape the feeling of being let down. Badly.

I should know because I make a point of watching the second Vikram movie every other month just to see a maestro finesse one of his best performances in recent years. Because Kamal Haasan’s worst outings are - and should be - better than what anyone else delivers…

But Thug Life is none of that, with a script that’s worse off than that other Mani Ratnam dud Kaatru Veliyidai.  

What Kamal Haasan and Mani Ratnam could have done is take a couple of cues from the 2022 Vikram, where the entire movie gave just about equal play to the other two leads – Vijay Sethupathi and Fahadh Faasil. Where Kamal Haasan didn’t have to carry the entire film on his own, like he was forced to in ‘Indian 2’…

For any Kamal fan wanting move on from Thug Life, let’s go back to the past. Indulge in the sheer mastery of Nayakan, when as a relatively new director Mani Ratnam found ways to tell a story in ways that made it an instant epic. And remains entrenched among the best films ever made anywhere…

It wasn’t just about how a gangster came to be, but told a wider – and relatable – story of Sakthivel ‘Velu’ Naicker’s ties to his family and the wider society where he calls the shots. One where losses of dear ones – through untimely deaths and estrangement – weigh on a rapidly aging gangster. Nayakan took its inspirations from Godfather and Godfather 2, but shines through as a masterclass in cinema on its own. (Nayakan inspired multiple Indian movies, with Parinda and Sarkar creating their own cult following…)

Picture Kamal Haasan as Sakthivel Naicker – and you cannot imagine a Nayakan without him. It’s a role that’s indelibly linked to him, and it’s a film that’s better off standing on its own and never to be remade. (There was a Hindi version, Dayavan, with the late Vinod Khanna in the role.)

Sadly, Thug Life has come nowhere being in that class of cinema. The hype was such Thug Life and Nayakan will always be mentioned in the same breath. But that’s where it should end – because there cannot be any comparison with the 1987 masterpiece…