It is hard to criticise a film that has been announced as one not to be viewed logically. The trailer of Adhik Ravichandran’s Ajith Kumar-starrer Good Bad Ugly (GBU) and its numerous promotions made it clear about what the audience could expect, yet I walked out of the theatre feeling like I had accidentally attended a fanboy convention.
GBU doesn’t just ask you to suspend disbelief — it demands you lobotomise logic, set it on fire, and watch it dance to Ajith Kumar’s greatest hits.
GBU is made purely for his fans who can revel in all the references to the actor’s hit films. So understandably, the film is low on substance and high on star value. It has a story that is thinner than a razor blade, but that does not mean it is sharp.
The film resembles more of a mashup video made by fans to celebrate their favourite star who is fondly called as Thala (literally, head). Director Adhik exploits the moniker by designing scenes where he could plant the Thala reference. In gen-z language, the film is made for only ‘vibezzz’.
Besides Ajith Kumar, GBU stars Trisha, Arjun Das, Prasanna, Prabhu, Sunil, Karthikeya Deva, Priya Prakash Varrier, and others. Ajith Kumar plays AK — the character’s full name is deliberately not revealed so we can associate that character with the real life actor.
AK is a mysterious gangster. We do not know much besides the fact that he was a huge gangster in Mumbai.
Now, his wife Ramya (Trisha) is a law-abiding person who works in the Indian Embassy in Spain. But we do not know how a gangster and an honest officer got together. They have a baby together, only after which it occurs to her that AK is running a crime network, and maybe the child will not lead a safe life. As I said earlier, this is not a film where you look for logic.
So, shockingly, he surrenders to the police in 2008, admitting all his crimes after Ramya chides him. He serves jail time for 17 years so that he can live a happy life with his family without his son knowing of his criminal past.
On the surface, the story is about AK promising the baby to return after 17 years. But just when he is about to meet his now teenage son, there is a twist — the son is now in jail in a drug case.
Everything that comes after is about how AK frees his son from jail. This means we have to undergo the painful ordeal of ‘dialogues’.
Let me give a scenario: There are two villains. AK offers them both a choice. Villain 1 chooses option A. Villain 2 chooses option B. There is a back and forth between the choices. AK finally thunders that there is an option C. The audience is just as confused as the villains.
To the accompaniment of elevating music, AK says, “A+B=C.”
This honestly reminded me of the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned into an algebra teacher with his a2+b2 formula. But I digress.
Adhik deserves credit for occasionally managing to inventively build the persona around AK, despite the film being low on substance.
To compensate for the lack of a solid story, Adhik thrusts all the ‘vibe’ elements into the film, which includes inserting old hit songs during fight sequences with slick editing, fight scenes choreographed to the beats of the song.
And of course you have the crazy, innovative guns, designing which may have exhausted all the crew’s creativity. Darkkey Nagaraj makes an appearance without contributing anything to the narrative.
Adhik manages to make the viewer overlook the flaws of the film in the first half, even though the story is predictable and the emotions don’t work. The surprise twist in the interval block actually promises fun. Until this point, the filmmaker seems to be self-aware. But he quickly runs out of tricks.
The second half turns into an unhinged experience as the film veers into parody territory.
AK has another name now. Enter Red Dragon — AK with a cooler name and international credentials. Turns out, he was besties with Ma Dong-seok (of Train to Busan fame). Also? John Wick apparently had a Tamil friend named, yes you guessed right, Red Dragon. Copyrights? What copyrights?
What we have seen as fan edits on Instagram – where fans fantasise and reimagine their favourite actors being part of Hollywood franchises – appear on a big screen.
At this point, I could no longer take the film seriously. I mean, I survived some insipid dialogues like, “”I am not Frank, it is a prank,” or Ajith’s ‘math’ dialogue, “A+B=C”.
The characters in GBU are weak. Big surprise. We never know who AK is. We see teasers of him in different get-ups, reminding of his looks from Amarkalam, Billa, or Dheena.
Trisha plays a unidimensional nagging wife. The only thing different about her is the curly hair. Prabhu, Sunil, Redin Kingsley, and Prasanna exist solely to hype up Ajith.
Neither is the villain, played by Arjun Das, conceived as a strong character.
The film has Jackie Shroff. But with no substantial role. The only thing we know about him is his frail health due to stress, as a remedy for which he uses laughing gas.
The only person who seems to have understood the assignment of this crazy project is GV Prakash. He has delivered a fun background music complimenting the proceedings.
Good Bad Ugly isn’t really a movie. It’s a glorified PowerPoint presentation of Ajith Kumar fan moments, held together by sheer force of star power and edited like a Instagram Reels tribute. If you’re an Ajith devotee, this might be your cinematic temple. But for the rest of us, it’s two-and-a-half hours of a bad trip in a mad house.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.