Thunivu
Chaotic, twisty bank heist tale has violence, language.
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Thunivu
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Thunivu is a long and wide-ranging, almost uncategorizable, Indian feature. The many shoot-'em-up scenes mostly focus on a bank robbery, but at two-and-a-half hours, this also casts an eye on corporate, police, army, government, press, and personal corruption. Explosions abound. Highly choreographed slow-mo displays of automatic weaponry ripping through flesh are on full display. Many are killed. A man is thrown from a building and it's reported as suicide. People are doused with gasoline by police officers and set afire. Their charred remains are seen. A small boy is held over machinery to threaten the boy's dad. Bombs are strapped to hostages. Men are trapped under a secret floor panel with a bomb. Someone seems to be extorting a police officer over a sex tape with a college student. Infrequent language includes "f--k," "s--t," "bastard," "damn," "hell," and "piss." In Tamil, Hindi, and English with English subtitles.
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What's the Story?
Although not told in any particular order, the events in THUNIVU are left to the audience to piece together. A dashing, smiling thief known as the Dark Devil (Ajith Kumar) is asked to organize a bank heist. He turns the job down, leaving the criminals to hire another gang. Some police officers are in on the heist, and bank owners and executives, too. It all quickly goes awry in a bank full of hostages, guards, dirty cops, journalists on the take, and a rival gang that kills the original robbers and takes over the crime. The upstart robbers are led by the Dark Devil, who originally turned the job down. But we don't learn that fact until later when, through a series of flashbacks, it's clear Dark has figured out what's really going on. He knows that the people involved in the original heist are corrupt and leverages his knowledge. By the end, the difference between good guys and bad guys is fuzzy, leading to the lingering question posed here: "Who the gangsta?"
Is It Any Good?
Thunivu is a gargantuan mess, a flashy heist-social-commentary-dance fest. Director-writer H. Vinoth relishes the stylish, almost comic Deadpool-type pace and nonchalance, but he matches it with the plot's incoherence and overly ambitious reach to create something only watchable for its magnificent insanity and incomprehensibility. This feels like a heist movie parody, like a 146-minute SNL skit. The misguided direction relies on unwieldy flashbacks seemingly inserted to explain multiple overlapping stories that each weigh down the story in their own different ways. In the end, we must ask why the heist was planned at all, given certain facts divulged at the end.
The shootings that go on and on, fueled by seemingly limitless ammunition, explosions, fistfights, martial arts displays, dance sequences, singing, and plotting, all cancel each other out to result in a boring sludge of excess. Despite a dashing and engaging lead character played with cheek and charm by the singing, dancing, machine gun-toting Ajith Kumar, nothing in the three or four individual movies that live within this two-and-a-half-hour muddle seems worth the monumental investment of effort, time, and money. The English subtitles seem a bit off as well -- for example, as robbers keep talking about "looting the bank."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how the movie's length affects the audience's concentration on the many story threads, flashbacks, subjects, and characters.
Singing and dancing are a staple in Indian movies. How do choreographed dances enhance or detract from the audience's view of the rest of the action -- a bank robbery, shootings, chases, bank fraud, etc.?
How is violence treated here? Do you think that choreographing violence, setting it to music, and playing it in slow-motion glorifies the violence? Why, or why not? What are other ways of showing violence on-screen?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: January 11, 2023
- Cast: Ajith Kumar, Manju Warrier, Samuthirakani
- Director: H. Vinoth
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Thriller
- Run time: 146 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: February 17, 2023
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