Beast – Misfire or not, what the Nelson-Vijay duo targeted is a pleasant surprise!

A Column by Bharath Vijayakumar

Beast left me wondering. Not whether it worked or not. But whether it came out as intended by Nelson. And because I feel that this is the film that Nelson actually wanted to make that I am a little confused about the results. When a big star joins with a maker with a unique style, the concern is mostly if the director would be lost in catering to the fans of the star. In Beast, Vijay doesn’t have a family (something which happened in Master as well), has no intro song and even his intro scene is rather muted. And the most important surprise, he has no strong emotional reason for fighting it out with the baddies. Nelson has probably made the film that he wanted to make. The results could be mixed but the fact that we have a young director who has actually gone ahead and made a film of his style with a superstar is a pleasant surprise. And more surprising is that Vijay was game for it.

There is a lot to like in the film including the way it uses its star but the biggest issue is that Nelson has tried to make a fun action film but hasn't cracked the mix as well as he would have liked. Neither the fun reaches the heights of Nelson's previous works nor is there any particular high with the action portions. Beast isn't as much a dark comedy like Nelson's earlier two films or it at least doesn't come across as one. Nelson has tried to place a John Wick like character in a Rush Hour kind of a film. It is a great idea actually. You get to make your kind of film and also get to use a star. The comedy is all right. It works reasonably well despite few misses. The action blocks too are pretty good but the purpose of the action is sorely missing. If Nelson wanted to treat the action itself comically, it would have been fine. But the action here is quite serious and stylised but for what seems a non existent cause. This is because the villain is practically non existent in Beast. I am pretty sure Nelson himself was aware of this and it seems a pretty conscious decision. Before killing the guy who had taken hostage of the mall, Vijay says, 'Innum tough koduthu irukalaam'. Leave that, dancer Sathish Krishnan who plays a silly character himself refers to one of the guys as a 'makku terrorist'. So it is clear that Nelson never wanted to treat this hostage situation as a dagger hanging over the head. This is perfectly fine and even the action looks like an attempt to mix style and spoof together. When Killi and Mahaali use the same weapons as Veera Raghavan with aplomb, you shouldn't have any doubts that this isn't the kind of hero worshipping film that you are used to. This is why I am delighted that Vijay was game for such a film. Even in a film like Doctor, which was primarily a comedy with a bit of action and with a much smaller star, you had a stronger villain and someone like Vinay to play the role. In Beast, Nelson has a huge star and has chosen a bigger scale. Maybe Nelson should have gone all out with the fun or he should have had a stronger villain if he wanted the John Wick/Rush Hour mix that I was talking about. By a stronger villain, I am not talking about a deadly villain. Just a villain who meant something in the overall scheme of things, even if it was characterized comically. The politician character probably was one such idea but that really did not work. Firstly, there is no direct face off for that character with the hero and secondly, that character (or maybe the performance) is totally out of sync with the Nelson universe.

I have a different assumption for those final fifteen minutes or so of the film. Nelson might have felt that he needed to go outdoors as he cannot have an entire film with such a huge star within a confined space. And to be honest, I am pretty sure he was treating this episode as well not with the seriousness you associate with an action film climax. There is definitely a spoofy tone to it. But when you have 'Thirai Thee Pidikkum' running in the background, it becomes difficult to see it that way. But I find it amusing when people question the logic behind the jet sequence. Make no mistake, Nelson is quite capable of putting Killi and Mahaali in that jet behind Vijay to help him tackle the approaching missiles. I honestly feel that he should have gone all out and made it that way. It might have backfired with a section of hard-core fans but it would have made the tone of the film a lot clearer.

I hope that when the dust of the opening hype settles down, the audience get to appreciate Nelson for what he was actually going for. The film might not become better by then but I hope that people at least get what was being aspired for. Beast might not have hit the bulls-eye but I really liked what Nelson was targeting and really happy that Vijay was game for it!