‘Beast’ movie review: Vijay’s latest is a dull and tedious affair

Comedy as a style has undergone a sea change in Tamil cinema. A few many years in the past, the comic, normally the hero’s greatest pal, appeared in scenes that have been inserted between track and motion sequences, thus offering quite a lot of fodder to Tamil comedy TV channels. That ‘separate comedy’ observe is a factor of the previous now, because the entry of new-age administrators. Nelson, one in all them, has been a pioneer in pushing comedy to the forefront in important sequences, regardless of the temper of the scene. This was evident — and labored to a big extent — in  Kolamavu Kokila and Physician.

This trope fails him in Beast, Vijay’s newest movie, operating in theatres. Vijay is solid as Veera Raghavan, a RAW agent who can dodge 100 bullets and but come out unscathed. The primary jiffy of the movie showcase him on the Indian border, the place he does one thing that he finally ends up regretting. We are able to really feel the why — or the emotional heft — on this scene.

However that, sadly, goes lacking in the remainder of the movie. You additionally don’t really feel the jitters that must be current in a tense state of affairs like this. Someplace within the hullabaloo of a Chennai mall, which is held hostage by a bunch of terrorists, each emotion and logic, to a big extent, go for a toss.

Can Veera Raghavan save these harmless civilians? Why have the terrorists captured a Chennai mall?

Beast as a topic — a hostage state of affairs in a mall, and a hero prepared to save lots of them — is true up Nelson’s alley, going by his previous file. The interplay between the characters may need made for some rib-tickling scenes, however sadly, it’s solely VTV Ganesh’s occasional humorous one-liners that we’re left with. Vijay’s interplay with Selvaraghavan, enjoying the mediator between the Authorities and the terrorists, appears much more informal. The romance with Pooja Hegde and its complete set-up may have been completely prevented, and it nonetheless wouldn’t have made a lot of a distinction.

A nonetheless from Beast
| Picture Credit score: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

By star-worshipping the hero and showcasing many slow-motion sequences and heavy-duty motion scenes, Nelson falls right into a entice that he rigorously prevented in his earlier Physician. Right here too, very like Sivakarthikeyan within the earlier outing, Vijay is aloof and expression-less. However in contrast to that movie, he prefers to make use of extra brawn than mind… which is among the many huge issues of Beast.

The writing is a giant letdown, particularly within the second half after the hostage state of affairs will get beneath management, and the shortage of a robust villain to problem the lead stands out sorely. Beast comes throughout as a really rushed job, when the director and staff got down to make a movie inside a restricted time-frame, thus operating out of concepts. There’s Anirudh’s music, with the ‘Jolly O Gymkhana’ track enjoying throughout the closing credit, and a few VTV Ganesh gags if you happen to actually care, however Beast dishes out little or no else.

Beast is at present operating in theatres