On a humid Thursday morning in Chennai, fans walked out of the cinema halls after watching Thala (sorry, we can’t say that anymore. It’s AK.) Ajith Kumar’s much-awaited film, Good Bad Ugly.

It was AK’s second film in two months—Quite uncharacteristic, but undoubtedly a treat for the star’s fans, who were parched, longing for their idol’s ‘comeback’ on the screen.

The thirst was quenched as whistles and cheers erupted all throughout the runtime of the film. Diehard AK fans went on overdrive, storming the internet with celebratory memes, reels, and box office numbers. But there was also a quiet unease. A small set of audience members, who can be touted as cinephiles, walked away with a train of thought. Was this the future of Tamil cinema—a film stitched with stimulating moments one after the other, along with a ton of references—or just another bold experiment? 

A film critic raised concerns regarding the storytelling method, highlighting the overloaded stimulatory moments. The word around the critics’ corner called it a feature film-length worth of reels. While not every film can—or should—conform to a single style or be boxed into a particular mold, this film has opened up a debate regarding the possibility of it sparking a trend of similar films in the coming seasons. 

Well, that’s a genuine concern and leaves the rest of us in a dead end, looking for answers. That’s when we turn to the film academics. Ilyas Muhammed Raffiudeen, a film researcher specialised in Film and Popular Culture, has answers to all the questions. 

Before we jump into the subject, Ilyas clarified that he enjoyed the film while he still had a few reservations. “What I liked was that the film acknowledges it as a fan service film and a no-brainer—both serve the same meaning in the Tamil film context. It exploits Ajith’s onscreen ‘Gangster’ image from all of his previous films, ranging from ‘Dheena’ to ‘Mankatha’, deliberately avoids his failures with Siva and even ‘Asal’, and also exploits his offscreen image using terms like ‘Photoshoot’ and ‘Muton Biriyani’ at places. Bringing in references to John Wick, Money Heist, and Don Lee was out of my imagination, and I was literally windblown. Although John Wick and Professor from Money Heist represent various political and philosophical underpinnings in their own stories, the new mass hero in Tamil cinema, devoid of ideology, was a guilty pleasure to watch and enjoy. I also liked the parodical references to Kill Bill and Catch Me If You Can.” 

This might seem like an enthusiastic endorsement from a devoted boy, but Ilyas didn’t limit himself to indulging his inner teenage AK fan. He put the film under the microscope and served us with a bird’s eye view of what happened, delving into various aspects, including the business of cinema, psychology, and the fate of filmmaking as an art in today’s world.

Let’s touch upon where it all began. Good Bad Ugly’s director, Adhik Ravichandran, didn’t just start to write a ‘fan film’ out of the blue. There was definitely a trend. Take a look at Venkat Prabhu’s 2024 flick GOAT, a fan fest laced with a truckload of references. Mind you, it wasn’t the starting point either. So, where did it all kick off?

What’s the starting point of ‘Fan Films’?

“I see GBU as a part of the evolution of our mass hero films since Karthik Subbaraj made Petta. When Karthik Subbaraj and others from Naalaya Iyakkunar arrived, they were called the ‘new wave Tamil cinema’. That was also the time when the mass heroes were failing. We started seeing films that were story-centric instead of hero-centric in mainstream cinema. When Petta happened, an unholy alliance was formed between the new wave of Tamil cinema and the established stars. Announced as a fan film, Petta was a pastiche of multiple ‘Rajinikanth’ elements. Then we had ‘Vikram’ by Lokesh Kanagaraj. When Venkat Prabhu made ‘GOAT’, he announced that the film was made for Vijay fans as a celebratory film for a theatrical experience. Post-COVID films are made in such a way, and the elements in these films are majorly nostalgic. Moreover, the attention economy created by the reels culture has also reduced the attention span of the younger audience, who form most of the footfall, so the film is infused with multiple moments resembling a roller coaster ride.

The Mass hero films were always self-referential. The audience always knew that it was their ‘hero’ and not the ‘character’. But it is now after GOAT and GBU that the ‘heroes’ are openly the heroes themselves, and the ‘characters’ themselves acknowledge their on-screen and off-screen identities. The line separating these identities has been completely blurred as the theatrical fans are in for a carnival, not a ‘film’ film.”

Ilyas didn’t just trace the origin of the ‘fan film’ trend—he tore into why it existed in the first place. The answer is simple: “Capitalism”.

What’s the catalyst behind the trend?

“I consider these to be purely business films that focus on a set of audiences. As Martin Scorsese rightly labels them as ‘Theme park movies’, these movies have the only motto to cater to their specific audiences. There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ films anymore; they are only those that ‘worked’ or ‘not worked’ because they construct that specific type of audience. Popular media have this innate tendency to be flexible from their conventional structures. This could be a phase, or sometimes, it could also become the new normal. Only time has the answer for it.

These are all symptoms of late capitalism, where art loses its value and is treated only as a commodity. The root of the problem lies there and not with the artists or the rapidly changing medium.”  

And that’s our cue to talk about cinema as an art. With ‘References’ becoming the selling point of the films, it leads us to an important question. That’s what Ilyas felt, too. Are filmmakers getting away from creating original moments and hiding behind past references to successful films?

Ilyas didn’t shy away from controversy and offered a composed response, drawing parallels between Hollywood and Tamil cinema. 

“When The Avengers happened, it redefined the idea of popular cinema and sowed the idea of how multiple films and various characters can combine to create a cinematic universe. After Thanos wiped out the entire world in MCU, the hype created was massive. After the Avengers: Endgame, there came a saturation point; the most powerful villain, Thanos, was defeated, and yet the story had to continue; the box office had to be milked.

Apply the same to Tamil cinema. The mass heroes were almost tiring archetypes during the arrival of the new wave of Tamil cinema. The very idea of mass hero since MGR was the construction of a villain, who depicts some kind of social evil, and the representation of the masses through the star body and how he defeats the villain, portraying collective fantasies. However, since Petta depicts some social evil, the fan films are not extremely message-bounded like the previous films. They just produce theatrical moments, with high spectacles of masculine performances alone. One film after another, the typical ‘mass hero’ is being watered down, devoid of ideology. The mass heroes no longer sing ‘social messages’ like MGR in their introduction songs. ‘Bigil’ had Vijay addressing just his fans. ‘Master’ just had a dance beat – ‘Vaathi Coming’; ‘Beast’ had ‘Arabic Kuthu’, a song written in gibberish. I don’t mention Ajith’s films here because they weren’t even well received by their fans, as they failed to fit into this trajectory that I am mentioning with Vijay.

After Avengers: Endgame, all Marvel films are either brutally failing at the box office, except a very few films. One among them is Spiderman: No Way Home (2021), which was specifically built to cater to three generations of Marvel audiences by bringing in three Spidermen from various generations. Jailer (2023) followed the same strategy by roping Mohanlal and Shiva Rajkumar to cater for the South Indian audiences instead of the usual Tamil audiences, whom Rajinikanth always served. The idea behind Spiderman: No Way Home was further expanded with Deadpool and Wolverine (2024), which brought in the right kind of nostalgia. When Deadpool meets Henry Cavill as Wolverine, it even brings the DC fans enjoyment. That is the same moment produced in Tamil cinema when Ajith in GBU says, ‘I am Waiting’ at the intermission scene.

Popular films are all in conversation with one another. One film refers to another, and the cycle keeps going on. All they do is serve the box office, produce loads of money, and dupe the audiences in the name of entertainment. The fans get a carnivalesque moment, forget what happened, and move on. One thing is sure: Stardom in Tamil cinema is dying. The stars are escaping to other domains by using their long-earned popularity or milking their popularity for money through films like Jailer, GOAT or GBU.” 

Hmm! Let me guess, it must have been a lengthy read, but if you have made it this far, why don’t you read about what Ilyas disliked about GBU? 

“Obviously, when it was titled Good, Bad Ugly, I didn’t expect a Sergio Leone; it was Adhik Ravichandran. As I said earlier, I hate Adhik Ravichandran. I hate his female characters. The only two female characters in this film are depicted as manipulative, deceiving and stereotypical women who realise that the ‘Man was right’ in the end. Simran’s ode to ‘Kill Bill’ Uma Thurman was a quite ‘masculine’ character from Adhik’s imagination. The male gaze over white women around Arjun Das and the usage of women’s costumes as a symbol of mockery with the comedians Raghu Ram Ambadapudi and Redin Kingsley were all extensions of Adhik ‘s misogynic imagination. At some point, the borrowed soundtrack felt extremely repetitive and boring.”

Well, that’s a reminder for the filmmakers that they can’t afford to leave it unnoticed—casual misogyny isn’t invisible as they think. As for the question of whether GBU might trigger a dangerous trend, Ilyas had a simple response.

“Popular media have this innate tendency to be flexible from their conventional structures. This could be a phase, or sometimes, it could also become the new normal. Only time has the answer for it.”