The Kamal Haasan Saga

THUG LIFE is a strange name but it approaches the grotesque in light of the awful finished product. Because this is not a review of the movie, I’ll just say: Thug Life shows how woefully out of touch both Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan are. On another plane, both veterans seem to have failed to grasp the reality that two generations have grown up since the peak of their stardom. The line separating ‘veteran’ and ‘irrelevant’ is thin.

Kamal Haasan’s fame rests on four pillars: his acting prowess, his passion for cinema, his obsessive pursuit of all filmmaking departments, and his longevity. All admirable qualities. His journey from a promising child artist to an accomplished actor who was also a big star to his decadal slide into irrelevance is a case study. His filmography is evidence of this. It encompasses the whole spectrum from the outstanding to the outlandish.

He delivered his best work under some of the masters of Indian cinema—K Balachander, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, K Viswanath, to name a few—and there is every reason to believe that these directors had reined him in. That changed with the 1987 blockbuster Nayakan, his maiden collaboration with Mani Ratnam. The movie marks a decisive turn in his career. Among other things, it brought to the fore his fixation with Hollywood imports—makeup artists, stuntmen, costumers, VFX artists, et al. The fixation only swelled with time. As a result, he faced increasing complaints from producers about engorged budgets and Kamal’s interference in almost all departments. K Balachander would have never allowed this. We can cite two major instances.

The first is Nayakan. As the film’s shooting progressed, its producer, Muktha Srinivasan’s anxiety soared. The whole episode is worth recounting at length.

On the 25th anniversary of Nayakan, Kamal Haasan hurled a dishonest accusation against Muktha in The Hindu in which he called the producer “tight-fisted”, among other things. In his rebuttal, Muktha set the record straight:

“Mani Ratnam… was not interested in bringing in either a Hollywood stuntman or a makeup man… In fact it was Kamal Haasan’s idea to bring such people in. Our company had a makeup man and costumers who were all paid by me. To state that there was no budget for makeup and costumes is absurd… the budget for the film was estimated at Rs. 60 lakh… However it became “over-budget”, with expenses crossing Rs. 1 crore…

“Kamal Haasan did not act in my movie for free. He was paid a huge sum, amounting to almost 20 per cent of the original budget… The tragedy is that I did not make any profit… Had it not been for Ilayaraja and Lenin, the movie would have flopped. I have nothing against Kamal Haasan taking credit for the success of Nayakan. But not at my cost, please.”

The second is the mega-expensive 2001 movie, Aalavandhan, which not only ruined the producer (it collected ₹2 crore against its ₹25 crore cost) but was universally panned. One reviewer was brutal: “The film falls flat on its face because of its failure in the two most important departments of filmmaking—scriptwriting, and direction… It almost seems as if Kamal Haasan and Suresh Krishna were high on drugs while making this film.”

Kamal Haasan’s fame rests on four pillars: his acting prowess, his passion for cinema, his obsessive pursuit of all filmmaking departments, and his longevity. His journey from a promising child artist to an accomplished actor who was also a big star to his decadal slide into irrelevance is a case study

A sense of onscreen vainglory is rather evident in scores of movies Kamal Haasan acted in after Nayakan. It is most conspicuous in Hey Ram released in 2000. Haasan produced, scripted and directed the film and also wrote its screenplay. It is a thinly veiled assault against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); Haasan appears in every scene and doesn’t want us to forget that as Saket Ram Iyengar, he is a philosopher, intellectual and avenging angel rolled into one.

This leads us to a phenomenon that unravels when Kamal Haasan the actor dons the role of a real-life intellectual trying to sound profound about everything: Hindu philosophy, atheism, communism, secularism, Periyarism, and even jurisprudence. And when Kamal Haasan the intellectual dons the role of a politician, we bolt towards safety. To give credit where it’s due, Kamal Haasan’s brand of politics defies description. He is a Brahmin who is also a worshipper of EV Ramasamy Naicker (Periyar) who openly called for a genocide of Brahmins. He is also a leftist atheist who once declared that “left leaders are my heroes” without naming them.

In 2017, he proclaimed that he spotted a kindred soul in Arvind Kejriwal and sought to work with him. And in a much earlier interview, he said that there was no underworld mafia in Tamil Nadu because all the dons were sitting in the secretariat, and thus there was no space for him in politics. Fast forward again to 2017; he said in an interview with The Hindu that he would risk everything to “serve” the people by cleansing politics. The chosen vehicle of service: nothing less than the chief minister’s chair. In his own words, “Someone has to wear the neta’s cap. It will be a crown of thorns. Someone has to clean the quagmire and make this place habitable for people. I’m not hungry for power but will seize the opportunity if that’s the only way to deliver for the people.” A crown of thorns. A noble invocation of Rahul Gandhi’s 2013 mantra that power is poison but someone has to drink it to serve the janata. But Kamal Haasan the politician finally unravelled when he floated his own party, Makkal Needhi Maiam, in 2018. It quickly bombed much like his movies in the last two decades. He lacked clarity and coherence and one still doesn’t know what he and his party really stand for.

Recently, Haasan took on the role of a linguist during the promotion of Thug Life. As evidence of his claim that Kannada was born of Tamil, he said, ‘Many scholars have established this fact.’ The explosion of outrage in Karnataka at this false claim has battered the movie’s collections. Yet Kamal Haasan remains defiant and refuses to apologise

That secret was finally revealed when Kamal Haasan campaigned for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in the 2024 General Election in exchange for a Rajya Sabha seat. It appears the EVR worshipper had formally joined his ideological mothership at last.

And then, recently, he took on the role of a linguist during the promotion of Thug Life. As evidence of his claim that Kannada was born of Tamil, he merely said, “[M]any scholars have established this fact.” The explosion of outrage in Karnataka at this false claim has battered the movie’s collections. Yet Kamal Haasan, the courageous linguist, remains defiant and refuses to apologise.

One is reminded of how he surrendered before the might of Muslim groups in the wake of his 2013 movie Vishwaroopam. He had initially thundered against making any cuts, going so far as issuing this threat: “I will find out in a few days if this is a secular country. I need a secular place to settle. If there’s no secular place in India I would go overseas.

My passport will change.” His bravado lasted just a few days. The right amount of pressure from the ‘right’ places made him see the light and the real meaning of Indian secularism. He agreed to the cuts.

Fortunately, Kamal Haasan can afford to remain courageous before Kannada groups. The worst outcome so far has been a ban on Thug Life in Karnataka.

actorintellectualKamal HaasanKannadalanguage controversyTamil NaduThug Life