After more than a year of grim news about COVID, the last fortnight has been rather encouraging with a steady decline in the TPR in many parts of our country. This essentially meant that the State Govts have started to ease the restrictions though it is imperative that the public are sensible enough to do the needful to remain protected. However, the theatres are still some time away before it would be opened due to which Karthik Subbaraj's "Jagame Thandhiram" had to opt for a OTT release on Netflix. The trailer promised it to be an absolute entertainer with an interesting star cast. So does it manage to live upto expectations???
Peter Sprott (James Cosmo) is a white supremacist gangster who was hand in glove with the political clan that was against the influx of refugees into UK. His rival was Sivadoss (Joju George), a Tamilian who along with his army of immigrants was a constant thorn in Peter's operations. At around this time, the exploits of Suruli (Dhanush), a Madurai based gangster reached the ears of Peter who hired the services of the former to put an end to Sivadoss's empire. Since the paycheck was hefty, Suruli took up the mission but could he trust a white supremacist???
Ever since Karthik Subbaraj burst into the scene with "Pizza", he was billed as one of the directors to look out for in the present generation. His tribute to Rajinikanth in the form of "Petta" had the audience go ga-ga & hence when his latest venture was announced with Dhanush it was expected to be a cracker. Unfortunately, it didn't quite (at least for me) as the manner in which he had penned the script clearly indicated that he didn't know how to balance the wackiness with a global issue and in the process failed to do justice to both especially the latter aspect. Despite this shortcoming, it still manages to keep the audience entertained with the protagonist's bindaas attitude & the no holds barred action masala.
On the technical side, Santhosh Narayanan's BGM & music were impressive, Shreyas Krishna's visuals deserves praise while Vivek Harshan could have been more judicious with his editing skills. Coming to performances, Dhanush was interesting as Suruli though his portrayal felt like an amalgamation of Rajini & Maari. Joju was impressive despite the fact that he had a significantly reduced screen time while James Cosmo did a decent job as well. As for the rest of the cast, Gajaraj as Murugesan deserves mention while the others including Aishwarya Lekshmi were average.
Verdict: There is no doubt that the final product didn't quite match the expectations. However, it will keep the audience entertained but one cant help thinking that it had scope for much more if adequate thought was given to the script rather than playing it to the galleries. In short, you can give it a try!!!
Rating: 2.25/5
Regards...Ben
