“Beast” centers around Veera Raghavan, an Ex-RAW agent that gets caught in the middle of terrorists hijacking a mall. The film is written and directed by Nelson Dilipkumar, whose previous film “Doctor” was a treat to watch despite some issues I had with its pacing.
It’s always interesting to see what happens when a relatively new director with a unique voice is tasked with handling a film that is either being bankrolled by a huge production company (i.e. Marvel) or features an A-list super star (i.e. Thalapathy Vijay). Last year, the incredibly talented Mari Selvaraj was able to wonderfully marry his vision with the stardom of Dhanush in “Karnan”. However, more often that not, we see the artistry of these newer directors taking a back-seat like Karthick Subbaraj with “Petta” or Chole Zhao with “Eternals”. “Beast”, unfortunately, falls into this category. Nelson’s penchant for dark comedy and sharp writing losses focus amongst the stardom of Thalapathy Vijay, so much so that the film becomes hard to enjoy even as a Vijay fan.
The beginning of this film featured some energetic and clever choreography, even setting-up an interesting personal conflict that would’ve been great to explore. There seemed to be hints of a broken man and deeper issues involving mental health and illness that would’ve been quite revolutionary for such a huge star to tackle. I also loved hearing Anirudh’s Arabic rendition of the main theme. However, the film quickly goes down hill from that with some humor that is more tasteless than funny.
Though it is to be noted that Nelson’s penchant for dark humor isn’t for everyone, and even some scenes in “Doctor” struck me the wrong way. However, the comedy in “Beast” feels quite forced and contrived. For example, there is a fiancé character that just got onto my nerves for his constant nagging at Pooja Hegde.
But it’s not just the comedy, the screenplay for the film feels generic and predictable. It lacks the creativity and energy that you would expect to see in a movie featuring terrorist hijackings in a mall. The action sequences after the first fight scene also mostly fall-flat and seem uninspired. After a while, Anirudh’s score seems to simply be a rehashing of the main theme, over and over again. It also doesn’t help that this film pushes 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Vijay, apart from his dance in Arabic Kuthu, lacks a lot of charisma that we would expect. The beginning of this film also featured Vijay with much more heart and character than what we see for the majority of the runtime. Which really makes me wonder what in the hell happened in the production of this movie after that first act. Pooja Hegde does so little in this film I almost forgot she was in this. Surprisingly, the best performance in the film is given by Selvaraghavan, who plays an officer that is dealing with the terrorists inside the mall.
“Beast” is quite a disappointing effort, especially coming from such talents as Vijay and Nelson. One can only hope that Nelson finds his voice again, especially considering that his next film is with an arguably bigger star: Rajinikanth. As for Vijay, I think the disappointment of “Beast” will blow over soon as people flock in droves to see his next film. It’s just sad to see a film with a solid set-up devolve into something less worth-while.
