The latest edition to Vijay’s filmography, Beast focuses on the story of Veera Raghavan played by Vijay, who is a capable R&W agent that resigns from the force because he feels abandoned by the organisation during a mission. Veera after R&W joins a private security company and as fate had it, he one day is among the hostages in a mall taken over by terrorists, and he decides to foil their plans and prevent the government from releasing a dreaded terrorist, whom he had helped put in prison at great personal cost.
With perfect set pieces, Nelson (director) aims to highlight to the audience what a capable soldier Veera Raghavan is. The film does begin promisingly. We see a prologue involving Veera, a R&W officer suffering trauma from a mission to capture a most-wanted terror mastermind. While he is at the mall with his girlfriend Preethi (Pooja Hegde) is taken over by terrorists. The government’s negotiator Althaf Hussain (Selvaraghavan) manages to coax Veera into taking up the rescue mission, but can he succeed is the question that the film explores.
Beast is no different from a film catered to suit the image of the star. The problem with Beast is that Veera is so strong that a mission as complex as hostage rescue does not seems to be a challenge. The terrorists hardly seem dangerous (they barely kill anyone, even when trying to put fear in the hearts of the hostages), and the mission hardly comes across as something of a daunting task for a daredevil like Veera. To add, none of the hijackers have any personality, including their leader Saif (Ankur Ajit Vikal). It feels as if the hijackers are mere props ready to lie down on the floor as Veera does his job.
If you just expect a casual commercial film, Beast will highly entertain you, but if you dissect too much, the writing has cinematic liberties that will question logic and at a few places, the writing is so flimsy, as if the film was meant for Vijay. Adding to the list of problems, another issue with Beast is that Vijay has a lot of screen space, the other characters do very little. It’s difficult to pick a single memorable moment from their portions. And a stronger villain would have made the film even better. Barring that, Beast would delightfully entertain and engage you, irrespective of whether you’re a fan of Vijay or not.
Despite the flaws, the film is enamoured with action sequences combined with an amazing background score. Apart from the dark humour, music is another vital component of the film. The background score amplifies the stunt sequences to another level, and this is one of those rare films where the music, cinematography and editing gels so well. Kudos to Manoj Paramahamsa and Nirmal for that. The stunt sequences are crisp, slick, and innovative. Even though they are against the laws of physics, the conceptualization and execution make the end result much better than what it should have been.
In conclusion, if you are a Vijay fan then the film is meant for you, and you are in for a solid entertainer that’s also cinematically beautiful.
