What can change the nature of a man?

Thugs of Hindustan (2018) is a movie about thugs.  In Hindustan.  These are not the murderous Kali cultists you may know from pulp fiction and British propaganda; these thugs are heroic freedom fighters, led by noble badass Kudabaksh (Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan) and his ward, literal warrior princess Zafira (Fatima Sahna Shaikh, who played one of the kids in One 2 Ka 4 and suddenly I feel so very, very old.)  Kudabaksh and Zafira have a tragic backstory, but the film explains it right away, so I'm not going to bother. The thugs are fighting against the tyranny of the British East India company, personified by the nefarious John Clive (Lloyd Owen), and their first move is to steal a British ship because in addition to being a drama about the struggle for Indian independence, this is also a pirate movie.

In order to locate Kudabaksh, Clive hires charming scoundrel Firangi Sailor (Aamir Khan), and I am deeply disappointed that this movie has a lead character whose name literally means "foreign sailor" and nobody ever makes the obvious "named after his father" joke.  Firangi manages to feign heroism long enough to join up with the thugs, betrays them, betrays the British, and so on.  One of the many criticisms of this movie is that Firangi is just a copy of Captain Jack Sparrow, but while there's an element of truth there (they're both weirdos with questionable loyalties, awesome hats, and eye makeup who somehow manage to convince people to trust them), Firangi is a more self-aware character than Sparrow is.  The movie is at its best when it's  about Firangi and Kudabaksh, two strong characters played by two great actors musing about human nature and whether change is really possible.

But the movie is not always at it's best.  A good masala movie will leap over genre boundaries with purpose, while Thugs of Hindustan just sort of meanders from one genre to the next.  There are pirates, and then Firangi is dressing up as a British officer to woo a courtesan (Katrina Kaif) and then there';s a literal Benny Hill chase scene, and on to the next thing, over and over.  The same meandering spirit affects the fight scenes, which should be great.  Kudabaksh glowers impressively, Zafira is fast and acrobatic and seems to have the bow from Hawk the Slayer, and Firangi swashes all the buckles, but there's no real weight to anything, so it all comes off as very by the numbers - pretty numbers, but numbers nonetheless.

I'm a little frustrated.  Thugs of Hindustan is not a bad movie, but it could have been a really good movie.  Like Firangi, it needs to commit.