Nelson’s films are located in amoral landscapes where crime is often comedy. The general attitude of the characters in his film, whether good or bad, is “Why so serious?” Beast is an interesting experiment that brings a star of Vijay’s stature into this quirky world, and it’s a mantle that the actor wears comfortably, segueing from his last avatar in Master where he played a professor without an inclination for preaching. As ex-RAW agent Veeraraghavan, the role could have easily slipped into populist hypernationalism but neither Nelson nor Vijay seem to have been keen on taking that predictable route.

The introduction sequence for Vijay has to be the most low key one in recent years. He merely grabs hold of a child’s escaped balloon and turns to the camera. There’s no major build-up for who he is, what he’s capable of, how dangerous he is and so on. No close-up shots of his various body parts before we see his face. It felt like a good sign — that Nelson was going to smash the star vehicle format and reinvent it by giving primacy to the plot.

But that’s precisely where the film slips, slides and crashes to the ground. Terrorists ‘hijack’ a mall in Chennai and demand that their leader Umar Farooq is released in exchange. Veeraraghavan, who quit after a traumatic incident that led him to distrust the government agency, is in the mall along with his girlfriend Preethi (Pooja Hegde) and a few other sidekicks. Well, our man is obviously not going to sit around and wait for rescue ops.

So far, so good. Very quickly though, the film goes haywire as it tries to balance Nelson’s brand of humour with the dire situation at hand. The Islamic terrorists are from ‘ISS’ and appear to be from Pakistan and Afghanistan. They speak to each other in fluent Hindi, and to the hostages in Tamil. They seem to be extremely talented in linguistics but downright foolhardy when it comes to planning a terror operation. Shine Tom Chacko plays one of them, and I had blood tears rolling down my cheeks seeing an actor of his calibre in such a poorly written role.

Nelson tries to be imaginative and break out of cliches but he keeps using the oldest tricks in the book whenever he runs out of ideas. Shine, for instance, is looking sadly at a photo of his son in the middle of the hostage crisis. Of course Veeraraghavan finds the photo. Of course Veeraraghavan interrogates the terrorist. Of course the terrorist spills the beans in a matter of seconds. Of course the son has a brain tumour. I wish at least the choice of disease had been something new.

A hostage situation on screen is going to work only if the viewers care about the people whose lives are under threat. Nelson barely scratches the surface here. An elderly woman gets shot in the head but apart from screaming that moment, the crowd obediently stands with blank expressions on their faces, as if they are in a school PE period. Sivakarthikeyan’s robotic stance in Doctor, Nelson’s last release, was deliberate characterisation. Here, it just looks plain lazy.

VTV Ganesh, Redin Kingsley and Yogi Babu are frequently funny but the film starts to look like a comedy reality TV show with the actors taking turns to perform their little sketches. Pooja Hegde’s Preethi is another of those vapid heroine characters we could have done without. She meets Veeraraghavan at a wedding, thanks to his psychiatrist who drags him along so he can see ‘super figures’ at a north Indian wedding (yes, really). Pooja is gorgeous in ‘Arabi Kuthu’ but even the shaky security guard Munuswamy has a more memorable role than she does.

Selvaraghavan plays the token good Muslim Althaf, a RAW agent who negotiates with the terrorists. He brings some chuckles with his staid dialogue delivery and stoic demeanor, in sharp contrast to Shaji Chen’s role as the overexcited Home Minister.

The visual effects for such a big film are surprisingly mediocre. Vijay has probably never looked better, but all the swag accentuated by Anirudh’s background score is deflated by the shoddy treatment on screen. The final stretch, with Veeraraghavan’s version of a ‘surgical strike’, scores some political points, but it also makes the film feel unnecessarily long since the execution looks far from convincing.

Beast had a lot going for it, and Vijay is certainly leaner, meaner, stronger. The film, unfortunately, is not. Far from roaring, this one just squeaks past for its few moments of hilarity and Vijay’s terrific screen presence.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.