The long-awaited reunion of director Mani Ratnam and actor Kamal Haasan—the duo behind what many consider Indian cinema's answer to The Godfather—was nothing short of a cinephile’s dream. After nearly four decades, they return with Thug Life, a modern gangster drama that promised intensity, scale, and gravitas. Unfortunately, what unfolds on screen is a film that begins with promise but quickly spirals into disappointment.

The film opens with a bang—literally. A stylized black-and-white prologue, followed by a tense shootout, immediately…

Neither a propaganda piece nor a great film, this project would have been better suited as a web series to fully explore its expansive narrative and events. While Kangana delivered a solid performance and the events were portrayed with a sense of truth, the film falls short in its execution.
The war scenes are well-choreographed, and the art direction effectively captures the period settings. However, the writing suffers from trying to cram too many events into a single film. The…