Beast Review

Beast Review: Beast Mode Deactivated

Rating: 2/5

Thalapathy Vijay’s yearly bonanza, this time in the form of Beast, has been much hyped with a lot of frenzy from the songs and trailer. Director by new-age maverick director Nelson, after a lot of delays it has finally hit the screens. Let’s see what it has to offer.

Plot:

Veera Raghavan (Vijay) is a RAW agent that goes on a terrorist mission that doesn’t go quite right for him. Ultimately, he suffers a lot of trauma due to that, and the same trauma comes back when he is trapped in a mall hijacking situation with the same terrorists and his girlfriend Preethi (Pooja Hedge). What happens next forms the rest of the story.

Performances:

Thalapathy Vijay’s acting is par at best. While he carries some scenes with swagger, especially the action, the emotional scenes do not hold any weightage at all as he artificially acts through them. The stone face characterization also doesn’t help. Pooja Hedge is there as eye-candy in the songs and has a very small role, which she does as usual. VJ Ganesh tries hard to infuse comedy, and while he does well, the comedy he has given to him is not adequate at all. Redin Kingsley and Yogi Babu could have done wonders with good comedy and screentime, but they don’t have any of it here. Selvaraghavan is average, but another good actor with immense comedic timing could have elevated the role. Shine Tom Chacko as a sympathetic terrorist is wasted. Everyone else is either immemorable or fits the bill.

Writing/Direction:

Nelsons writing is the #1 villain of this movie. While Nelson’s script has a very good core idea with some strong ideas resonating through; the problem is these ideas are at most 20-30 minutes of the movie’s runtime. When he expands those ideas into a 150-minute feature movie, it eventually leads to a dragging experience that is filled with convenient writing and a mundane narrative throughout the movie. The blocks are there set up, but nothing has been written well. The comedic writing that Nelson has become known for is missing throughout, with the jokes seeming forced in the scenario rather than natural. Nelson sets up the blocks decently for comedy, but the actual comedy that results here is poor and doesn’t do any justice to his talent. Ultimately, what we get is a mess of a movie that doesn’t have any crispness to it. The first 10 minutes of the movie are written well, with the emotional arc and action-angle established quite well. Unfortunately, the writing takes a huge hit afterward. Scenes keep dragging in the form of the hijacking or mall events, conveniently going to the next event out of the middle of nowhere, the comedic writing seems way too forced, and the commerciality that Nelson forces in rather than keeping his movies natural with an eventual setup of characters seep through. Here, the characters (even Vijay to an extent) are unmemorable and are not written well at all. Nelson’s writing in his first two movies, particularly Doctor, had that sense of establishing all the character arcs and tying in everything. That writing is sorely missing here as Nelson lags out a good concept and keeps it with nonsensical blocks, eventually leaving many things open-ended. 

Nelson’s screenplay is mediocre as well, keeping the movie lagging with scenes that are brought in from the middle of nowhere. The screenplay in a word is forced; it doesn’t have the sense of smoothness and structure to it as it continues to be hammed up in an array of poorly written elements. Scenes continue to come in and leave, written without purpose. While The screenplay attempts to follow a linear path and tries to keep the movie moving at a steady pace, shown by the movie being set in the mall, the scenes themselves have no sense of structure or flow to them. Everything happens out of pure convenience or forced comedy, resulting in the movie feeling disoriented and dragged. Even the scenes in the mall are often brought in without any particular purpose to them rather than to play to some gallery. This screenplay pattern is especially clear in the second half as the movie keeps jumping events with no sense of proper flow to them, inserting comedy and action at various blocks without a sense of seamless integration. The screenplay also writes in the comedy and the emotions quite shoddily, with the comedy relying a lot on one-liners that aren’t mouthed properly or aren’t given the scope to be funny. The emotions, on the other hand, are quite plain and in your face rather than subtle. With the screenplay missing all sense of focus throughout the movie, eventually starting from the romantic track a drag of sense is created with the scenes not sustaining any sense of hype in them. As the screenplay keeps jamming around, Nelson’s direction and narration are another abysmal part of the story. Nelson’s direction doesn’t have a focus to it here; sometimes it’s an emphasis to the comedy, sometimes emotion, but nowhere does he try to seamlessly incorporate the both. The narration has such a languid tone to it and drains all of the hype out of very important action and thriller blocks. Combined with a subpar BGM, the events are narrated in such a lazy tone with the main character having everything given to him on a plate when he desires, that they don’t evoke any interest. What’s more, even the action blocks which have been shot with good visuals and could have been very exhilarating are let down. The writing has suffered big time throughout the movie.

The first half of Beast is a drag, taking a wonderful beginning and a different concept and drilling mundanity and lag to the core of it. Beast begins quite well actually, establishing the conflict of the movie and Vijay’s character in a simple yet effective manner followed by a very good action block. Signs of Nelson’s classic dark comedy and layered emotion are also seen her leaving a positive feeling for the rest of the movie. However, that positive feeling is ruined soon with the intro of comedy and romance. As mentioned, the comedy doesn’t have a natural sense to it; while some dialogues involve chuckles, despite the content being relatively decent the delivery and execution are just not up to the mark. The romantic track is another blunder, as the dialogues are quite outdated and the song Arabic Kuthu which comes in is picturized badly. From there, the movie drones along using the same tropes over and over again without a flow, using outdated comedy. The mall angle attempts to bring back some of the standard Nelson comedy with its setup of various characters, but underutilizes almost all of them with a few punch lines at best; a lot of the very funny Doctor gang are reduced to caricatures. Even when the mall scenes enter action mode, there aren’t any energy-inducing scenes to rave about much; the movie keeps dragging and dragging with dialogues and emotional connects in our faces. The action is definitely shot well and some of it works well too, but in the scheme of things doesn’t pan out. The messy writing and convenience of the screenplay don’t make it any better; the interval scenes stand as a testament to this, as the sheer randomness of it dilutes the impact and leaves a lot on the second half.

The second half doesn’t offer any respite; it’s equally an ordeal, although the visuals offer something to look at, and some of the comedy works. It maintains the same messy conglomeration of “dark” yet tasteless comedy, some random action, and a forceful emotional angle brought back again and again. The action is decent to look at in the beginning, with the visuals and cinematography offering something or the other to look at despite all of the clattered surroundings leading up to it. The screenplay goes for another toss here as it keeps bringing up the most random events due to sheer convenience, especially as the movie keeps furthering. Some of the vintage Nelson comedy we saw in movies like Doctor shines through here with some one-liners and a setup to an action block that brings some chuckles, but continuous errors in the screenplay and narrative just leave the movie as a tirade and a half. The climax is next-level insanity as the screenplay avoids logic and every sense of familiarity in a cinematic realm to produce some superhero magic from the hero. Amidst all, Nelson also packs in some tributes that stand out like a sore thumb even amidst the rubble. Despite the visuals once again saving the day and making it manageable, overall the movie is a pain in the rear and will leave you with a beastly headache. Nelson’s dark comedy and new genres have always been a very tight balancing act; while Doctor shows the perfection of it, Beast is the other side.

Technicalities:

Anirudh’s music is decent, with the picturizations ruining the songs themselves, but the BGM is very very erratic. While sometimes it is done well, sometimes it is reminiscent of Master and not done well at all to let some of the impacts of the scene go down the drain. Disappointing considering the Anirudh standard. Cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa is a game-changer; if the movie is half-bearable, it’s only because of this man who showcases the action and sets quite picturesquely. Dialogues are a bummer, especially the comedic ones; the one-liners just don’t work. Editing is decent, when the entire movie has gone down the drain only so much one can edit. Production values are top-notch.

Final Verdict:

After watching Beast, my respect for Kanagaraj and Master has gone up immensely. While I still do not like the movie too much due to the pain that Kanagaraj could have made a commercial masterpiece and ruined it for tributes, at least he had his touches throughout with the characters and attempted to let his signature style shine through. Nelson doesn’t even attempt; in the process of playing to the masses, he loses everything about what makes him a director. Positives are the first 10 minutes, some action blocks and comedy, cinematography, and production values. On the flip side, toothless and messy writing, messy screenplay, draggy and boring first half, haphazard second half, mundane direction and narration, forced and weak comedy and emotions, inconsistent BGM, and random climax weigh the movie down insanely. Beast promised a roar, but barely whimpers. Here’s hoping both Nelson and Vijay can bounce back.