Beast movie review: Unapologetic fan service

But, director Nelson Dilipkumar has done away with this must-have element in his latest film Beast, starring Tamil superstar Vijay. We meet our hero without any of the established hero-worshipping rituals. He appears on screen without much announcement and fanfare, and smiles at the audience for a moment. That’s all. It is a huge subversion of the expectations of hardcore fans.

The creative decision is in line with the stoic nature of Veera Raghavan, played by Vijay. He is so inexpressive that strangers won’t be able to guess that he is suffering from traumatic stress just by looking at him. Nelson has cut Veera Raghavan’s character from the same cloth as Dr Varun, the stoic hero of his last directorial Doctor.

Veera Raghavan is a top RAW officer. However, the collateral damage caused by him during a high-profile mission takes a toll on his mental health. And he takes that loss very personally and he believes that he has been betrayed by his men. So he quits RAW. Call it the good fortune of innocent people or a stroke of bad luck for a group of Pakistan-based terrorists, Veera unexpectedly ends up in a shopping mall, which gets hijacked. His former colleagues, who get a whiff of his presence in the mall, request his help. The government tells Veera that he’s their best hope. But, his stoic nature protects him from flattery.

Also, unlike heroes in other films, say Die Hard, Veera doesn’t take it upon himself to fight the terrorists and rescue all the hostages single-handedly without for a second thinking about his safety. After the terrorists take control of the mall, Veera safely escorts himself and a few friends to safety and finds a safe place to hide. And then he tells his friends something like, “Let’s not worry about the lives of other people. It’s the job of the government to save these people. Let us first save ourselves and get out.”

What?! He’s the hero and the ultimate sign of a hero is sacrifice, isn’t it? This is where Nelson gets realistic and he touches upon a less-talked-about subject — accountability. Veera doesn’t want to get involved in the matter because he doesn’t want any more deaths on his conscience. He doesn’t want to find himself in a position to decide who lives and who dies. It is too much of a burden for one man to shoulder.

However, it is the same clear conscience of Veera that doesn’t allow him to sit back and let innocents die. After hearing the scream of a young girl, Veera can no longer be idle. He knows that it’s time for him to apply his skills, kill some bad men and save some good people. “I am a soldier. Not a politician,” says Veera at one point.

And when Veera steps out of his safety to face the terrorists, time slows down. As Anirudh’s Beast Mode track plays in the background, Veera walks in slow motion with an axe in hand, giving fans the opportunity to work themselves into a frenzy, which Nelson had denied them in the opening moments of the film.

As Nelson makes big star movies without the usual cliché, he seems to be creating a set of his own clichés. Take, for example, actors Redin Kingsley, Sunil Reddy and Yogi Babu. It seems this set of actors is a must-have in a Nelson film even as they don’t serve the narration besides being just time fillers. Nelson forces these actors into the narration to create comic relief. At times it works, but this trick seems to be wearing thin with every new film.

Also, Nelson could have used this plot set-up to turn in a nail-biting thriller. Instead, he gives us an unapologetic crowd-pleaser and a solid service to Vijay’s core fanbase.