Thug Life Movie Synopsis: An aging gangster has to take on the boy he has brought into fold and raised as his heir.Thug Life Movie Review: When the duo that delivered the iconic Nayakan reunite after three decades, our basic expectation is, if not a masterpiece, at least a memorable moviegoing experience. But with Thug Life, both

Mani Ratnam

and

Kamal Haasan

disappoint, delivering one of their weakest efforts, to make us wonder what they saw in this beaten-to-death storyline to get back together again. The film is a collection of gangster movie clichés - gang rivalry, betrayal, jealousy and vengeance - strung together with a plot that revolves around a fearless, respected and seemingly immortal gangster, Rangaraya Sakthivel (Kamal Haasan) and his relationship with Amaran, a boy whose life he accidentally ruins and chooses to raise as his family. He tries to make up for the boy's loss of his father (Ilango Kumaravel) by searching for his lost sister, Chandra, but two decades later, is still unable to.

Now, the boy has blossomed into a dashing young gangster (

Silambarasan TR

), a trusted lieutenant of Sakthivel. Even as the aging gangster faces off with his bitter rival Sadanand (Mahesh Manjrekar), unbeknownst to him, there's a battle coming his way from his own gang members - his elder brother Manickam (Nassar) and the ambitious Pathrose (Joju George) - who turn Amaran against him. Can Sakthivel, who has come face to face with death quite a few times, still manage to evade its grasp? Despite familiar arcs, the leisurely paced first half manages to hold our interest, at least with the anticipation that there must be something deeper coming soon.

A couple of arcs, like the one involving Indrani (Trisha), a bar singer who he rescues and makes his concubine, Jayakumar Rayappa (Ashok Selvan), a cop determined to bring down the gangsters, and Deepak (Ali Fazal), Sadanand's nephew who wants to avenge the killing of his brother, along with the running thread of the search for Chandra, hold promise.

But soon, with uninspired writing and weak characterisation, Thug Life becomes a slog.

The latter half goes haywire with many of the sub-plots from the earlier portions either being diluted or largely getting shoved away for a long amount of time. Even Amaran goes missing for quite some time. Instead what we get are preposterous scenes of Sakthivel's survival after being shot at or stabbed multiple times. The threat of Sadanand ceases to exist and Deepak feels like a weak antagonist who makes moves that are predictable.

Even AR Rahman seems to lose interest and delivers a background score that feels random. The rich production values, especially Ravi K Chandran's glossy visuals, the mystery around the fate of Chandra and the inevitable face-off between Sakthivel and Amaran make us stay invested.