Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Chaotic, twisty bank heist tale has violence, language.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Thunivu
Parent and Kid Reviews
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
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Thriller
- Run time : 146 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : February 21, 2023
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