Although I was always on the fence about how good a director Nelson Dilipkumar was, some endearing elements of his earlier ventures like "Kolamaavu Kokila (2018)" and "Doctor (2021)" included his ability to churn out humour in the most unexpected of circumstances as well as his attention to detail when it came to his character sketches. His latest release "Beast", however, falters on both fronts while also failing to provide adequate mass elevation scenes and fan service to even render it appreciable for Vijay aficionados.
As the teasers and trailer mostly gave away, Vijay stars as "Veera Raghavan", a former intelligence operator who gets stuck in a mall Die Hard style while the establishment is run over by a gang of armed terrorists. How he uses his fists and wits to battle his way out of the seemingly intractable crisis and rescue the civilians trapped inside forms the rest of this cliched plotline. While one can forgive the predictability in the storyline, the superficial nature of the supporting cast makes the entire movie-watching experience go for a toss, with the antagonists especially reduced to mere caricatures, with no depth or character arcs to speak of.
And the comedy that Nelson has made his hallmark fails to take off. While some one-liners from veteran VTV Ganesh manage to evoke some laughs, the normally dependable Yogi Babu and Redin Kingsley are given precious little creative dialogues to work with. The female protagonists-Pooja Hegde and Aparna Das, as with all recent Vijay movies, reduce to mere also-there tropes. It was particularly painful to watch Shine Tom Chacko, a character actor who won the admiration of millions of fans across the nation with his powerful performances in "Kurup (2021)" and "Bheeshma Parvam (2022)" reduced to such a lame-duck side role.
Stunt sequences in superstar movies have always bordered on the implausible to the downright impossible but where Beast falters is in trying to also add quirkiness, the believability factor is reduced to nought as a whole while raising the cringe factor to full. With clear 'inspiration' taken from "Money Heist", at no point does any of the action choreography manage to wow you or catch you by surprise, despite having a superstar of Vijay's natural charisma and dexterity at their disposal.
Vijay's calculus in trying to broaden his appeal by imbibing Nelson's characteristic wit and humour into his superstar image with "Beast" was, unfortunately, undone by unimaginative, derivative stunt sequences as well as a string of poorly written, underdeveloped supporting characters. Nelson clearly had to sacrifice his natural storytelling style to accommodate the 'superstar' persona of his lead actor and in forcibly making Vijay dominate every sequence, the narrative strength and emotional impact of the storyline clearly suffered.
A disastrous, over-the-top, cringe-pro-max ultra-final act will render you speechless (in a bad way) and run screaming out of the theatre. Ultimately, we experienced the best parts of "Beast" even before the film's theatre release-its two superb songs "Arabic Kuthu" and "Jolly O Gymkhana" and its kickass BGM. This movie is one dumpster fire you would want to avoid at all costs. Not recommended!
