The plot is about… actually, you won’t care. This is not about the story. This is about the star, as the director unleashes one mass moment after another. It’s fun for a while, but eventually gets exhausting. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
A gangster father goes to jail for the sake of his family – because his wife asks him to turn into a good man. And he is separated from his son for eighteen long years. And when he is released, the son ends up in jail. That’s the hero’s side of Good Bad Ugly. Now, consider the villain’s side. We have a womaniser with mommy issues, and this ends up being the reason bad things happen to the hero’s son. Now, consider the son. He has grown up without a father, and he now has a girlfriend, who’s probably the only person he can share things with. And then, something happens to her, too. Now, consider the hero’s wife. She has been blaming her husband and his gangster past all along for the family’s troubles, but she realises that she may have to shoulder some of the blame, too. All said, there is enough serious material for a solid action-drama.
The biggest achievement of director Adhik Ravichandran is that he takes none of this seriously. He understands the brief perfectly. Good Bad Ugly is a film made by an Ajith fan, for Ajith fans. The only thing serious about the movie is how seriously it takes the cult of Ajith through the years. At the turn of the century, we got Dheena, which made the actor an action hero and gave him the nickname “thala”. The first song by the hero was sung by SP Balasubramaniam. Now, almost a quarter century later, we get the first song being sung by Anirudh and Paal Dabba. That is quite a journey, and Adhik sets out to pay homage to every bit of it. Some of it is genuinely inspired, like the twist on the twins concept from Vaali. Otherwise, we get more routine stuff, like the villain (Arjun Das) stringing together the words “amarkalam”, “aarambam”, “godfather”, and “varalaaru” in the same line, as though he were reading out Ajith’s filmography from Wikipedia.
The title comes from a (relatively) good man who turns bad and then turns ugly to his enemies. But the film is an endless series of references. Even Trisha, the heroine, gets to utter the words “lesa lesa”. At one point, she is held hostage, but no one in the audience is going to be biting their nails because Adhik turns this potentially tense sequence into a fun bit involving one of Ajith’s former heroines. I mean, the hero is simply called AK. Why bother thinking up a name for the character when he is basically Ajith playing Ajith! If you are the kind who feels that a fine actor like Shine Tom Chacko is reduced to one of the many sidekicks whose only job is to do some hero build-up, this is not the movie for you. Early on, a dialogue tells us that AK has the most loyal fans. Good Bad Ugly is for them.
AK is in fine form, channeling his past roles and looking as dashing as ever. The film also benefits from the look created by cinematographer Abhinandhan Ramanujam, the production designers, and the costume designers. This is a very rich-looking movie – every rupee spent is up there on screen. For a while, the fun is infectious, especially a fight cut in rhythm to a blockbuster Ilaiyaraaja song. But after about 30 minutes of fanboyism, a sense of fatigue sets in. I began to wonder: “Is there anything that is going to connect me emotionally to the movie?” It’s a stupid question, I know. Good Bad Ugly is not meant to be, say, Yennai Arindhaal or Kireedam or Viswasam. But the effect is of watching two hours and fifteen minutes of reels. It might work in small doses, but at feature-length, the film wears out its welcome. The best scene of Good Bad Ugly involves AK looking at photos of Ajith from his earlier films. It is a fantastic meta moment, and maybe something could have been done along those lines. But the loyal fans, I am sure, will walk out happy.
