Jagame Thandhiram Review: Inadequate yet Entertains to an Extent!

Karthik Subbaraj’s 2021 Tamil Netflix Original Jagame Thandhiram stars Dhanush in the lead, and James Cosmo, Aishwarya Lekhsmi, Joju George, Kalai Aarasan as the supporting cast. After several stiffs between the lead actor and producer Sashikanth of Y NOT Studios, the movie had a worldwide digital release and started streaming on Netflix.

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Suruli (Dhanush), a local thug, is recruited by an International Crime Lord, Peter (James Cosmo), in London to murder a business rival. Subsequently, when Suruli finishes off what he was hired for, a love, a truthful revelation and a guilt trip make him change his mind.

Marketed as a gangster film, Jagame Thandhiram had its share of action sequences with guns blasting and gore violence. But we have seen enough gangster films to the point they felt generic with a conventional template. Even the director Karthik Subbaraj directed two films with the same theme, but he always worked through the script to make it unique and fresh. So even with Jagame Thandhiram, while sticking true to the genre, Karthik Subbaraj focused on the crucial global issue; Illegal Immigration.

We made an article on how the Directors Pa. Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj and Vetri Maaran are voicing the voiceless minorities with their film. Karthik Subbaraj is the new entrant to the list, and he joins the bandwagon with Jagame Thandhiram. Even though countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand welcome other nationalities through their immigration program, certain refugees from war-hit zones and economically backward countries move into other places in unlawful ways.

As far as the intentions of Karthik Subbaraj goes, he tries to stay away from the larger picture of the politics behind immigration laws and sympathise with the refugees in Jagame Thandhiram, particularly the ones from Civil war-torn Sri Lanka. There were several edgy dialogues and questions on Nationalism, white supremacy and racism.

There are two sides to the same coin, and coming to a judgement without knowing both sides of the story is complicated. But discriminating against someone based on his nationality, skin colour, language, caste or religion is a crime against humanity. Well, at least Karthik Subbaraj managed to start a heated debate for the netizens on Twitter.

The lead actor Dhanush tasted success once again with his recent hit film Karnan and debuted on the OTT platform with this film. He recently wrapped the shooting of The Gray Man, a Netflix Original directed by The Russo Brothers of Avengers: End Game, and will share screen space with Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling.

He managed to deliver what was needed for the character, with his body language, quick-wit and the loud Madurai slang. With the actor, director and producer being a fan of Superstar Rajinikanth, Dhanush’s initial look, moustache looks similar to that of flashback scenes of Rajini film Petta (also directed by Karthik Subbaraj).

Tech Youtuber Marques Brownlee once said, “Expectations are the thief of Joy.” Huge pre-release anticipation for Jagame Thandhiram, the first look and trailer and the social media debate for not releasing the movie in the theatres and labelling the film as a “Theatre Material” (God knows what that is) let down the film. The film suffered several logical inconsistencies which were not expected from Karthik Subbaraj.

From a technical standpoint, the film was impressive with rich colours. Thankfully Karthik Subbaraj didn’t use the light and colour as a subtle metaphor or a hidden easter egg as far as I knew. Santhosh as always, elevates the film with this tremendous background score. Two songs didn’t make it to the final cut of the film to follow Netflix’s guidelines. With a humongous runtime, those songs would have further diminished the film.

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Overall, with a runtime of 160 minutes, Karthik Subbaraj narrates a tale with a compelling message but not on the expected standard. His intentions to voice the voiceless are appreciated, but the subject of Jagame Thandhiram is much bigger and could not make justice in three hours. Watch the movie on Netflix here.

‘Jagame Thandhiram’ Rating – 3/5 | Grade – B

Images via Netflix India

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