It is no secret that Beast starring Vijay in the lead attracted as much negative criticism as it was hailed by fans, and one of the critics of the movie was none other than Vijay's director-producer father SA Chandrasekhar (SAC) himself. SAC and Vijay are not on the best of terms but the former was seen wishing the latter for the success of Beast via media channels; Vijay himself spoke highly of his father during Beast's promotions so one can say that despite their differences, each party wants best for each other at the end of the day.
In an interview with Thanthi TV that has now gone viral, SA Chandrasekhar shared his honest thoughts about Beast, and slammed filmmaker Nelson Dilipkumar for the lack of screenplay in the movie. SAC said,
“I enjoyed Arabic Kuthu like how a die-hard fan would. But, Beast is a film that was made solely relying on Vijay’s stardom..The magic is there in the screenplay (which was missing). You can’t lightly handle a heavy subject like international terrorism. When a director is handling such a story with a RAW agent (at the center), he has to take time to study it - What it means to be a RAW agent, what is the RAW department, What is the military.
He shouldn't go for shoot just because a hero is available with this subject. A Screenplay is what arrests the attention of the audience and holds it. ”
When asked if he feels Beast could have done with a better screenplay, SAC stated, "What I saw in Beast, if I have to say it openly - I have no second thoughts about Beast running in theaters or collecting at the box-office. But from what I saw, Beast had a music director (Anirudh), a fight master (Anbariv), a dance master (Jani), an editor (Nirmal), a hero (Vijay) - All these people are there." SAC gave a long pause to whether he saw no director in the movie.
In the same interview SA Chandrasekhar also pointed out a growing trend of how successful young filmmakers handle movies with big stars. He said,
“Young filmmakers deliver an excellent first film in terms of content, technology and making. They also somehow achieve good results with the second film. When they begin to get the projects of big superstars, these young filmmakers begin to think, ‘now that we have dates of these heroes, we can make movies whichever way we want.’ They think the star already has a huge fan following and his film will run successfully in theatres, so no need for a screenplay and things like that. And they make a movie with a few songs and fights,”