Vicky, a software testing lead, begins by saying, “In IT businesses, they have a yearly group discussion.” We transition to a conference in London, where a group of techies are gathered around a table, staring at a white man who is pointing to a whiteboard that reads, "Q1 Appraisal Group Discussion." “A Tamil Nadu gangster". Vicky reveals that his advancement and pay raise are contingent on his ability to speak about the worst gangster they know. Suruli is mentioned by Vicky. Returning to Madurai, Vicky invites Suruli to join him in London to help a prominent English gangster take on another Tamil gangster.
This is the story of how a small-time Madurai thug became the right-hand man of a white supremacist. Jagame Thanthiram is a moderately entertaining affair if you're willing to fly alongside the film in such huge leaps of post-modern preposterousness.
Jagame Thanthiram First Look Poster
The film begins with us seeing a man whose wall is covered in the words "goods only," one of the o's missing. Another individual who drives a white automobile with a ‘white power' license plate. A third, who blocks an oncoming train with his scarlet classic automobile parked across the railway line. Karthik Subbaraj's latest film, Jagame Thanthiram, starring Dhanush, has an intriguing subject and is presented attractively, as one would expect from the filmmaker.
The tempo shifts at such a breakneck speed that we can barely keep up. Suruli, for example, meets the allies of a gang boss he betrayed to apologize to them after a heartbreaking flashback. When they make fun of him, he leaps into the air, punches them in the face, and beats them down. He appears to urge, "Accept my apology or else." They accept his apology in a matter of seconds, and he returns to his “gethu” condition of being. Revolutionaries appear to be waiting for outsiders to lead them in the realm of Jagame Thanthiram.
The film tries to be self-aware by criticizing its protagonists' epiphanies on a frequent basis, but such ill-fitting gags just serve to weaken those realizations further. It tries to be creative, but a lot of the foreshadowing is off. It tries to be rooted, but the flashback to the Sri Lankan tragedy is just atrocity porn. It tries to be touching, but it's lazy to raise up a youngster and give him lines about hiding under the bed.
That isn't to suggest Jagame Thanthiram is completely devoid of smoke. There's a smouldering here and a blazing bonfire there. Many Tamil dialogues are razor-sharp; those that don't allude to previous Tamil films are especially tasty. The wordplay around "erangal" (which can imply both "getting down to business" and "condolence"), for example, is clever.
Murugesan stands out as a fascinating character, possibly because he is the only one who appears to be written with empathy. His somber yet sweet pontification on washing plates is sad but endearing. The climax scene in the snow and the epilogue in the desert are both excellent examples of filmmaking.
Jagame Thanthiram, on the other hand, has a relatively weak backbone for a film that runs over two and a half hours. It's perplexing, indulgent, and thoughtless.
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