By S Srivatsan, freelance critic
Isn’t Ajith Kumar the apparent option to play Panjurli, the character Rishabh Shetty performed in Kantara, if ever Boney Kapoor decides to remake and produce it in Tamil? I used to be occupied with the roar of Kantara. There is one factor Ajith is actually good at: roaring, which he thinks rhymes with good appearing. He roars no less than thrice in Thunivu. He roared in Valimai. Before that, in Viswasam. And a lot earlier than that in Vivegam. Even earlier than that in Yennai Arindhal. Not to sound disrespectful or something, there may be one other factor Ajith is sweet at: shouting, which echoes 10x if you happen to watch it in 7.1 audio. “THIS HEIST IS MINE,” he shouts, at one level in Thunivu that immediately remind you of the same cry out in Mankatha, whereby he says, “THIS IS MY FUCKING GAME.”
Every time the character Ajith performs is put in a dire state of affairs or has to cope with a private loss, the perfect appearing comes within the type of shouting and roaring. Somehow Ajith will get away each single time: it isn’t rocket science actually. Fans need to take house the charmer in him. They don’t desire a “movie” from him, not even a conventional “actor”.
That made me suppose: doesn’t Ajith have probably the most arresting display screen presence in Tamil cinema? I don’t suppose anybody, typically not even Rajinikanth, can match as much as his (I’m occupied with the well mannered fuck you-look he provides in Aarambam). But then, isn’t Ajith additionally probably the most boring Superstar in Tamil cinema? All of them throughout the board hit a stagnation, the place they both reinvent themselves (Vijay in Master) or rediscover (Rajinikanth in Kabali) themselves. Ajith has firmly remained content material at being secure and unambitious; his filmography reeks of binary — he’s both a very good man (Valimai) or a very dangerous man (Billa and Mankatha). There is not any in-between. Even the flicks that had him in gray (Gautham Menon’s Yennai Arindhaal by which Ajith was terrific. Absolutely terrific. Viswasam that most individuals favored, I didn’t) had been a handful.
Ajith Kumar performs an evil kingpin. If that info is sufficient, then this assessment serves no objective. The star will get into an area that when felt pure to look at him do in Mankatha, the place he performed a ruthless villain from begin to end, with no emotional, political or psychological baggage. This time, although, there are fairly just a few fulfilling moments however not sufficient to maintain an entire film.
In his third collaboration with H Vinoth, Ajith takes up a badass position but once more. And after I say ‘badass’, I urge you to think about Ajith firing 10,000 bullets, carrying a pair of cool sun shades. The film we get is Thunivu. But I’d argue that Valimai was 10,000 bullets higher than Thunivu; Billa 2 was 20,000 bullets higher. In their earlier collaboration, one may no less than see Vinoth’s imaginative and prescient. Alright, imaginative and prescient will not be the suitable phrase…he no less than had fascinating methods — like these hair-raising mid-air bike stunts — to masks the dent within the screenplay. Valimai, for me, was thrilling for probably the most half besides, after all, the horribly put collectively amma scenes. I believed the motion was brilliantly choreographed and actually, referred to as Vinoth as the perfect Indian filmmaker to remake Mad Max: Fury Road in my assessment of Valimai for The Hindu. With Thunivu, Vinoth comes throughout as somebody who has misplaced the sense of objective and ambition.
Thunivu is all about guts; the center to show some extent {that a} Superstar like Ajith can do an evil character at this stage of his profession, guts to make the character likeable, guts to ask for an even bigger paycheck; to dream of grander motion items, guts to put off romance or sentiment. Yet, there isn’t any glory. Quite actually, zero pay-off.
The premise of this film is sort of fundamental: somebody desires to rob a personal financial institution that has over Rs 500cr unaccounted cash within the vault. The individual plotting this heist is a police officer and his identify just isn’t Vinayak Mahadev (Ajith in Mankatha) however Ramachandran (Ajay). When Ramachandran’s group winds up contained in the financial institution, they discover themselves trapped in another person’s plan. And that somebody is a anonymous individual, performed by Ajith Kumar. Sooner, we’ll discover out that each these events are half of a bigger design that we are going to come to later.
Thunivu begins with an enormous motion scene. Quite huge in its scale and the variety of bullets fired that it’s normally the showdown reserved for the climax. But then, how does Vinoth prime this? And he doesn’t. What was thrilling in Valimai looks like an inexpensive mash of concepts from Grand Theft Auto in Thunivu. That is, nevertheless, not the difficulty although.
Let’s take ‘heist’ as a broader class. The building of occasions turns into important within the proceedings and due to this fact, even in writing, one has to assemble the heist. There are two methods to do this, and the 2 good examples are Venkat Prabhu’s Mankatha and Chakri Toleti’s Unnai Pol Oruvan, a remake of the Bollywood film A Wednesday. The former, regardless of falling within the broader class of the heist style, is a superb instance of how to assemble the theft. Therefore, you might be solely invested within the act. Unnai Pol Oruvan, alternatively, is a strong instance of the ‘heist’ being executed on the viewers, whereby you might be absolutely immersed within the building of occasions. Vinoth in Thunivu appears confused over which path to take. For, he focuses solely on the development that occurs outdoors the heist. I’ll clarify. Right from the beginning, the film simply thrusts info upon info on us: somebody is arrested someplace, somebody is plotting a heist, one thing is brewing within the share market. When a film does this within the first 10 minutes, it may imply just one factor: lazy screenwriting. This just isn’t even screenwriting…it’s only a Facebook put up attempting so laborious to attract parallels between information clippings.
The second worrying half concerning the building is, Vinoth solely cares concerning the repercussions such a theft would trigger in society amongst individuals and in politics amongst politicians. We usually get “reaction” scenes from individuals and politicians. Popular memes and video reels are thrown at us pondering that these are good screenwriting components. They are all reacting to the heist. But what occurred to the film?
Let’s take the instance of Unnai Pol Oruvan. An unnamed man over a telephone desires to bomb Chennai. This is, due to this fact, the ‘heist’. And your complete screenplay is written round it that makes you pay attention to the how. Of course, the film had twin powerhouse performers in Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan. In Thunivu, the development itself feels horribly executed with no sense of style or flavour. It due to this fact focuses on the peripheries and never the precise heist.
There is an even bigger drawback in Vinoth’s writing. If you might be anyway going for a fast repair within the method of a “flashback” episode within the second half, why are you losing my time? This is probably the oldest screenwriting approach in Indian cinema. Yet, the aim of a masala film is to show the approach on its head. I’m not saying that you simply shouldn’t use flashbacks as a tool. But do one thing with it, no? At least do what an Atlee would do: stick with the fundamentals. If you anyway have the plans to make your hero — a daredevil gangster — find yourself as a Robin Hood, why waste our time?
Thunivu is edited by Vijay Velukutty. It by some means desires to provide the Ok.G.F really feel by using quick cuts. In doing so, scenes and plot factors don’t register. The dialogues are bland. The appearing is dangerous. The casting is worse. And Ghibran’s hammering background rating doesn’t even allow us to breathe for a second.
Vinoth doesn’t have a particular fashion as a filmmaker. He does actually good motion. But even these are fairly fundamental right here. There is a 360-degree motion scene we get that exhibits the ability of Nirav Shah however that’s simply it. Manju Warrier will get a Tomb Raider second. And that’s all. She has no cause to be a part of this film.
At one level, your complete theatre felt a collective excessive Ajith doing a performative dance that borderline mimicked Joaquin Phoenix from Joker. Thunivu is a film that looks like Ajith is delivering an opera for Parthasarathy Swami Sabha viewers.