Amitabh Bachchan as Khudabaksh is the biggest Thugs of all time. Lloyd Owen as John Clive, a ruthless British East India Company officer calls for Aamir Khan who is a quirky Thug named Firangi to win over Khudabaksh. What happens after this forms the crux of the story.
Director Vijay Krishna Acharya has written satisfactory script needed for a commercial flick, but the way he has conveyed it is disengaging. But honestly, we don't expect Aamir Khan to choose this kind of blind commercial contents. The emotions are portrayed in a melodramatic manner. The introduction scenes are pretty decent and so the premise is convincing. Once the conflict settles for take-off, the game becomes flat without any surprise elements or exciting factors. The screenplay would get just a border-pass mark as there are a few high points but the scenes fail to make a mark. There is no depth in the research done for the period backdrop. Also, smartness is missing while presenting the mass moments on screen.
The situations are serious but they do not get conveyed properly as flavors added to pepper the flow are disproportionate. A balance to give an entertainer along with emotions is the try, but the ingredients mixed have errors. Some of the tiny twists the first half are whistle-worthy, but too many of them through the progression becomes an overdose. There are plenty of logic loopholes to make the movie artificial. The pace is extremely sluggish and the predictability factor is also high. The scenes are quite repetitive, especially the ship action scenes. The fillers act as spoil-sport, in fact, the drag goes on and on at the end even after the main knot is concluded.
Amitabh Bachchan has to be appreciated for the effort he has taken to pull-off this physically demanding role, but somewhere, the satisfaction is low when the body-double pops out during the action sequences. Aamir Khan has tried his level best to engage with his funny screen presence, though he did well with respect to his quirky character, there were very few bright moments. Katrina Kaif hardly appear in two item numbers and in two scenes, her dance movements were a delight to watch, but the hair-thin importance for her in the movie was depressing to watch. Fatima Sana Shaikh is good, she is fit and has a proper scope in the story in which she has scored well. Lloyd Owen as John Clive has got an extremely weak villain characterization and so the intensity factor settles on the ground level.
The songs are energetic with nice foot-tapping tunes but the placements are random and put a pause to the flow. The background music is powerful and elevates the high moments, but two or three theme tracks are repeated throughout the movie. Camera work is solid and the movie is visually rich, the VFX team has also added more strength to the frames. The action sequences are noteworthy, the stunt choreography is neat without complications. Editing could have been far better at many places, the movie is very long and multiple establishments for the characters could have been scissored.
Watch our video review on 'Galatta Tamil' YouTube channel here.
Verdict: A long-drawn-out action flick which is just visually rich.
