Beast Review - Vijay's 65th movie is a poorly directed and bloated mess

Vijay 's last few movies while a bit over the top and filled with fanservice were still enjoyable to watch even if you aren't a fan of the actor. Unfortunately with Nelson's Beast , the actor seems to have taken a couple of steps back, and is pointlessly long and poorly directed.

The movie follows Former RAW agent Veera Raghavan, who is tasked with saving hostages in a mall that has been taken over by terrorists. Now, this plotline might remind some of the 1988 action classic Die Hard , in fact, it is more similar to the 1995 Jet Li action-comedy High Risk .

Both movies have very similar plotlines and it is clear director/writer Nelson has been heavily 'inspired' by it.

While High Risk managed to balance the action and comedy elements and have a menacing and intelligent, Beast does not. The cinematography and editing at times feels inspired by video game cut scenes, this would be a bad thing if they were not shot well.

It is understandable that a mass movie like Beast would want over-the-top and stylish action sequences that aren't really supposed to make sense, here they feel dated in their their excitation.

One thing mass masala movies often get away with during a gunfight is how the hero never gets shot or seriously injured despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Filmmakers often use some passable or poor excuse to explain this away, Beast doesn't even attempt to do this.

In one of the early action scenes we see Vijay infiltrating an apartment complex occupied by terrorists, as he makes his way through the building bullets avoid him like he is Neo in the Matrix but what makes this standout here is the fact that for some reason Nelson decided to make the Vijay avoid gunfire by doing a weird park over-dance hybrid.

Perhaps this was done to make audiences know how much of a badass the hero is but it falls flat and looks awkward and unintentionally funny.

Among the supporting cast, the only solid and interesting character was Selvaraghavan 's performance as the RAW agent Althaf who is put in charge of the rescue mission, he has some genuinely funny lines and does a great job with what he is given.

Pooja Hegde is in the movie and is only there because that movie needs a heroine who falls in love with the hero. She instantly, dances in a few songs, gets jealous of other women who talk to the hero and generally just stays in the background as a prop.

The movie forces a lot of comedy to balance out the action, these jokes from ok to cringe at and leans more towards the latter, comedian Yogi Babu feels mostly wasted in the movie.

As for the lead Vijay always has a great screen presence and does a solid job and I did enjoy him playing a more morally ambiguous character.

The music and BGM are okay and don't really stand out.

The idea behind Beast is solid, if the movie had a better director and screenplay it could have been a really unique and entertaining action movie and could have encouraged other Indian directors to experiment more with the action genre.

So it's better to wait till the movie comes out online unless you are a die-hard fan in which case you are going to watch it anyway.