No ‘Thunder’am: My quick take on Dhanush’s ‘ Jagame Thandiram’
Having watched Karnan and Asuran (which were typical film festivals type arty movies), I have become a fan of this skinny thalaiva’s son-in-law. Dhanush is a natural actor and has done very well when the role demands intense acting. However, I thought he doesn't have a toughie persona which the role demanded in this movie. I would have loved to see someone like Vijay sethupati or Surya in this bone breaker role. Even thalaiva himself would have done justice to this role.
It's a chicken head plot of an anti-hero surali played by Dhanush who is a गाँव का गूँड़ा involved in all kinds of nefarious activities like murders, he is head-hunted as ‘goonda consultant’ by a London based gangster to get rid of another Tamil gangster operating in London. Surali lands in London and does his job but then Director has some odd brain waves and he adds love story , change of heart, Elam cause, racism and anti racism sub plots and overstretches the movie length. What could have been a deadly action thriller becomes a desi love story where the anti hero has a change of heart and becomes a good guy in the end. परोठेवाला becomes a पोट्टी पटानेवाला 😜.
Director Karthik Subbaraj is known as a new wave or gen-next director, he has given some outstanding movies like Pizza in past. He is known for his stylized action choreography and choice musical scores, here too the action scenes are very elegantly shot (can be compared with any good Hollywood movies ), but it is the overstretched storyline that has let him down.
On the performance front, Dhanush despite lack of persona has given a likable performance, but the most impressive performance is given by Joju George, this hulkish built Malayali actor had impressed me in a malayali movie Nayattu where he plays a cop on run, here he is damn impressive in role of a Godfatherish gang leader.
Movie would have been a big hit had it been released in theaters as it has everything which a massy Tamil audiences love I.e foot tapping music, good dance numbers, seeti podu dialogs, romance, comedy and over the top action sequences. On the OTT platform of Netflix, it is released in as many as 17 languages as the makers are hoping to make a global (jagame) impact, but it is lack of good content which prevent this in becoming a ‘जग’ में ‘thunder’म 🤓
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