'Good Bad Ugly' review: Adhik Ravichandran's boisterous, comicbook-style tribute to Ajith works to a large extent

Doing a fanboy tribute can be a very tricky thing. Do too little, and you risk angering the hardcore fans. Do too much, and you risk angering those seeking a wholesome, balanced approach. There are places in Good Bad Ugly (GBU) where director Adhik Ravichandran goes slightly overboard with the references, loud background music and the cameos, which might irk audiences looking for a relatively calmer, quieter film.

Anyone familiar with Ravichandran's earlier work, particularly his last blockbuster, Mark Anthony, would surely know what they are walking into. But this doesn't necessarily mean fans of that Vishal-SJ Suryah entertainer have to like this one too. A while after coming out of GBU, a friend who saw the film told me he loved Mark Anthony but not this one. He found it too loud and chaotic. I can perfectly understand that.

I, for one, found much to enjoy in GBU. If I were in the mood for a rewatch, of the two, I would undoubtedly pick Mark Anthony. One of the latter's advantages was the electrifying presence of SJ Suryah. While watching GBU, I wondered how a film like GBU would've fared had SJ Suryah been part of it. But then I realised it wouldn't work in a film completely invested in doing a proper fanboy sambavam to Ajith, the superstar. Right from the opening credits, Adhik Ravichandran makes it evident that he's a stickler for details and, of course, presentation. His presentation is basically going to an all-you-can-eat buffet where not all the delicacies work, but most of it does.

One of the reasons it largely worked for me is the pure escapism it offers. Ravichandran keeps reminding you that you are watching a movie, lest you forget. In fact, at one point, Ravichandran's voice asks Ajith's character, AK, whether he should "add a song with Simran" while the actor looks at the camera and tells the director "he should be killed first" for making him do certain things. This moment alone is a testament to the amount of freedom that Ravichandran was afforded by Ajith and the producers — to paint in bold, heavy brush strokes with all the colours in his paintbox. GBU is the most fun I've had from an Ajith film since Mankatha. It's a boisterous, colourful, and manic trip to the mind of an Ajith fanboy who utilises all the tools and resources at his disposal to go as wild as possible.

Needless to say, there are references galore to Ajith's earlier films. It's impressive how Ravichandran manages to pepper them in all the right places and at the right time. Of course, there are times he goes a bit overboard, as I mentioned earlier, but, boy, he gets it right most of the time. Ravichandran differs vastly from some of the recent directors that attempted a fanboy sambavam with Ajith in that he clearly knows that cinema is not just about showing a flamboyantly dressed hero walking in slo-mo, sporting sunglasses and swag, in slo-mo multiple times. It's also about the camera angles, colours, set design, editing choices, and music. Ravichandran makes all these elements active participants.

To give you a couple of examples: Take one superbly choreographed fight sequence where Ajith alone is momentarily in colour while his opponents and the background are in monochrome or the prison song where the prison looks more like a club designed with a 'prison theme' than a realistic-looking penitentiary. Or the flashback moment with a baby, where Ajith is illuminated and photographed in such a way that we see two silhouettes of him, big and small, to probably indicate the character's vulnerability when it comes to his family and how it contrasts with the fearsome, larger-than-life persona he carries in public. And there's a whole animated sequence involving some extremely popular international movie characters that gave the movie freak inside me a huge kick.

As I said before, Ravichandran wants us to have a blast and not get too concerned about how much logical sense everything makes. He bombards his audience with one wild scenario after another — just like the bullets fired from a mini rotary cannon concealed in an antique camera (another wild idea!). It's also good to see Arjun Das having fun doing a lot of things that — and this is not a spoiler — would feel normal in a Vishal Bharadwaj film. That scene where the hallucination of a dead associate of Arjun Das is dancing around him while the latter is having a phone conversation? WTF! I loved it!

That said, I didn't care for the so-called emotion-driven story revolving around the central father-son bond that becomes the fulcrum of the film's main events. Everything involving Ajith, Trisha, Karthikeya Dev (who plays AK's son), Prasanna, and Prabhu comes off looking corny. And these portions make up, if I were to venture a guess, about 20-30% of the film. But, fortunately, the incredible fun that a lion's share of the film offers, evens the dull bits out.

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