Beast Movie Review: Thalapathy Vijay charms in this lacklustre actioner

Director Nelson Dilipkumar's Beast starring Vijay, Pooja Hegde and Selvaraghavan is an action thriller with several applause-worthy moments. With a clichéd storyline, the film solely relies on Vijay's shoulders.

After Master, Thalapathy Vijay is back with Beast. Director Nelson Dilipkumar is known for his dead-pan humour and dark comedy. When Thalapathy Vijay announced his next film with Nelson, expectations skyrocketed. And they did live up to it. Beast is an action thriller with mass moments aplenty.

Veera Raghavan (Vijay) is a RAW agent, who has quit work after a young civilian died when he was carrying out his mission. He blames himself for the death of the child and takes the help of a psychiatrist. Incidentally, he, along with Preethi (Pooja Hegde), visits a mall in Chennai, which gets hijacked by a terrorist organisation. The terrorists demand the government to release the head, Umar Farook, and are in negotiation with government officer Althaf Hussain (Selvaraghavan) for the same. How Veera Raghavan saves the hostages in the mall and destroys the terrorists form the story of Beast.

Let's get it straight. Beast's story isn't anything new, so everything lies in the treatment of the screenplay. Nelson Dilipkumar has catered to Vijay's fans by including several applause-worthy moments, which will make fans jump with joy. Veera Raghavan is one of the neatly-fleshed out characters in the world of Beast. He is unapologetic and is willing to go to any extent to complete his mission. He stands up to his superiors and doesn't care about the consequences. Vijay is charming and fun in Nelson's Beast. The dead-pan humour worked out well in so many places.

However, the film is bogged down by the lack of inventiveness. There is no powerful villain to take on Vijay and make the proceedings interesting. It is Vijay's show all the way and he headlines this clichéd thriller. Be it his style or dance or dialogue delivery, Vijay looks at ease and delivers a noteworthy performance.

Nelson is a master at incorporating humour into a serious setup. While his previous efforts (Kolamaavu Kokila and Doctor) paid off well, some of the jokes in Beast fall flat. With a bunch of actors like VTV Ganesh, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley and others, Beast could have been much more fun. However, the film and the director chose to concentrate mainly on Vijay.

Here's the trailer of Beast:

Thalapathy Vijay's performance is easily one of the highpoints of Beast. Pooja Hegde gets a cute role, but her character doesn't add much value to the story. She complemented Vijay very well with her performance and dance. Selvaraghavan gets a solid role and has given an effortless performance. It is enjoyable to see Selvaraghavan have total fun with his role in the film. VTV Ganesh, Yogi Babu, Sathish and a bunch of other comedians, provide sporadic laughs in Beast. Shaji Chen went overboard with his expressions and failed to create an impact.