Jagame Thandhiram received mixed reviews from critics. Natalia Winkelman of
The New York Times said the screenplay (by Karthik Subbaraj) elevated the "usual crime antics by drawing attention to language, and how it can be used as a weapon or a unifier". She added that few sequences in the film feel "fresh", but called the movie's patterns "familiar". M. Suganth of
The Times of India rated three of five stars for the film and called few sequences in the first half, featuring Dhanush "interesting", but criticised the slow-paced second half of the film. He also commented that "Subbaraj used the struggle of
Eelam Tamils to add depth", but criticised that the attempt "does not make the scenes moving". Srivatsan S of
The Hindu opined that Karthik Subbaraj wanted to have a bit of everything in the film, which is "a drama with an ultra-cool gangster (Dhanush) at the centre", "a serious political film dealing with a global issue", and "a stylishly-shot bubblegum film with a carefree attitude", but called that it "does not quite achieve the desired results".
Saibal Chatterjee of
NDTV rated two-and-a-half out of five, calling that "the tedium is lessened by the ebullience of Dhanush and the solidity of Joju George". He further praised James Cosmo's performance as it "makes the most of the over-the-top quality of the larger-than-life villain". Sudhir Srinivasan of
The New Indian Express called
Jagame Thandhiram as "Karthik Subbaraj's weakest film", but praised the other technical aspects of the film such as music, cinematography and picturisation. He added this film as like "Karthik Subbaraj's desire to make two different Tamil films set in the West", with one, a solemn film like
Iraivi that would bleed for "immigrants, refugees and Eelam Tamils". Nandini Ramanath of
Scroll.in called that "overstuffed with Subbaraj's trademark flourishes,
Jagame Thandhiram seeks to be something more than a gangster movie"; she praised Dhanush's performance in the film as "magnetic, as the messiah of immigrants", while also calling Cosmo as "the archvillain whose bark is worse than his bite" and George as "dignified as the Robin Hood of the British underworld". In a contrasting review,
Firstpost-based critic Ranjani Krishnakumar gave one star for the film, calling it as "confused", "self-indulgent", and "inconsiderate". She pointed that the film did not make up its mind between "being an empathetic story about xenophobia" or a "massy
gangster film about a borderline psychopath", though it has "moments of both neither building on the other, ends up as a silly mess". Haricharan Pudipeddi of
Hindustan Times stated that "Karthik Subaraj tried to pull a
Kabali with Dhanush, but it disappoints big time". He further criticised the casting of foreign actors and the editing, being "chopped and stitched together in a way that some scenes absolutely make no sense".
The News Minute editor-in-chief,
Sowmya Rajendran, gave three out of five stars saying "There are some wildly fun moments in the film, but they don't add up to give us anything meaningful". Shubhra Gupta of
The Indian Express rated two-and-a-half out of five saying, "Dhanush-in-veshti strides across sleety England streets in slo-mo, doing Rajini but wisely keeping it low key, channelling the street-smart, lovable scamp he specialises in, when not going all out gangsta familiar to us from such cracking films as
Vada Chennai." Sajesh Mohan of
Onmanorama gave three out of five saying "
Jagame Thandhiram could not be considered equal to
Pa. Ranjith's
Kaala or
Kabali, where the director used the popular figure of Rajinikanth and his
Style Mannan avatar to drive home a political and ideological point. But it definitely will hold its place."
Baradwaj Rangan of
Film Companion South called the film, based on an important issue, is "flamboyantly" but "generically" made, which could have been "Suruli's coming-of-age story, about him wrapping his head around the refugee crisis". Writing for the same website, Vishal Menon called the film's "righteous self-importance just does not fit into the world it tries to build for itself". == References ==