“GOOD BAD UGLY” Film Review

One should never deride commercial films, and an unabashed homage to an actor by a fanboy director can be a very entertaining and enjoyable exercise. Ajith Kumar’s latest film, Good Bad Ugly attempts to do both, but succeeds only in pleasing the front-benchers of Ajith Kumar fans.

The film marks the first Tamil production of Mythri Movie Makers and the first time that Adhik Ravichandran directs Ajith Kumar. The two had met on the sets of Nerkonnda Paarvai where Adhik Ravichandran had a small acting role.

The film boasts a huge star cast headed by Ajith Kumar and Trisha. The supporting cast includes Prabhu, Arjun Das, Telugu cinema’s Sunil, Bollywood’s Jackie Shroff, Prasanna, Shine Tom Chacko, Yogi Babu, Tinnue Anand, Priya Prakash Varrier and Redin Kingsley. There are also special appearances by Simran, Playback- and pop singer Usha Uthup, Rahul Dev, Sayaji Shinde and special animated appearances by Ma Dong-seok, Keanu Reeves and Alvaro Morte.

Good Bad Ugly is a celebration of Ajith Kumar’s iconic movies, with multiple references to memorable lines (punch dialogue), character names and film titles. There are also many popular songs ranging from the 1980s to the early 2000s and, of course, many replications of Ajith Kumar’s different looks across the year. Inexplicably, the film also features Ajith Kumar in the most outlandish and blindingly loud shirts.

The premise is an excellent one. Ajith Kumar plays AK, a gangster who arranges early parole to reunite with his son after spending 18 years in prison. He returns to his wife, Ramya (Trisha) and his son Vihaan (Kartikeya Dev) in the hope of reforming and leading a normal life, but circumstances force him to return to his violent ways to protect his family.

The premise had all the makings of a tense action drama and could easily be tweaked into an action comedy, but director Adhik Ravichandran tries to make a cartoon with real-life actors and the end result is a film that only fans of Ajith Kumar of fans of the mass category of films could possibly relate to.

The acting is gratingly bad, the script far too cheesy and the stunts ludicrously unrealistic. Ajith Kumar is reduced to a caricature of himself and Trisha is given no scope to act. Karthikeya Dev, who plays AK’s son, Vihaan, has all the scope but zero acting ability to pull it off. The talented Arjun Das is wasted in a two-dimensional role. Prabhu, who showed hopeful signs of replicating his presence in Billa, also has limited scope to perform. Sunil and Jackie Shroff are also criminally wasted while Prasanna’s acceptance of the role is a baffling one. Redin Kinglsey once again puts in a performance that makes him a strong contender for the award of Kodambakkam’s most annoying actor.

Abinandan Ramanujam has a few stunningly artistic shots bt is swallowed by the outdated lighting techniques throughout the film.

The most positive contribution in the film comes from music composer G.V. Prakash Kumar. While his songs range from ordinary to bizarre, his background score is outstanding.

Adhik Ravichandran’s adulation of Ajith Kumar soaks every scene of the film and it is a pity that he did not give his idol a better script and a better screenplay.

Fans of Ajithkumar would love this film, but the more discerning viewer will be disappointed in the film’s general mediocrity.