GOAT review: A bit of CSK, less logic, high action and Vijay in top form
Venkat Prabhu relies more on cinematic high moments rather than organic twists and turns, but at the same time, he has given solid scope for Vijay to show his versatility.
Director Venkat Prabhu’s The Greatest of All Time is an upgraded mass masala entertainer in which the hero plays an undercover agent who must save his family and the lives of innocent people as one of his past nemesis tries to take revenge by tying him up in an emotional trope.
Gandhi (Vijay) is an undercover agent and operates secretly with his friends (Prabhu Deva, Prashanth, Ajmal and Jayaram). In a mission, they try to hunt down a rogue agent Rajiv Menon (Mohan) who narrowly escapes but loses all his family members. However, Gandhi and the team think that Menon is no more and wraps up the case. Years later, Menon takes revenge against Gandhi and his family with the help of the latter’s son Sanjay (another Vijay). Can Gandhi win against Menon's devious plans? How can Gandhi fight against his son? That is how the story goes.
Vijay carries the film
The Greatest of All Time has many engaging moments as the film constantly references past blockbusters, IPL’s popular franchise CSK, and a couple of exciting cameos that will make the crowd go wild. Venkat Prabhu has definitely tried something different by offering two different characterizations for Vijay, who is excellent with his subtle and over-the-top performances for the old and young characters, respectively.
As the rest of the characters and actors are not up to the mark, Vijay(s) is the one who carries the film on his shoulders.
Among the ensemble of actors, Prashanth is quite impressive while Sneha, Prabhu Deva, Jayaram, Ajmal, and Meenakshi are passable. Menon is a weak villain although he is not the main antagonist. The first half of the film is packed with enough engaging moments and a powerful intermission sequence. The second half takes a detour in the initial 20 minutes. While the audience already knows that young Vijay is the villain, the senior Vijay takes too much time to find the truth and it tests our patience. But Venkat Prabhu overcomes the shortcomings with a couple of interesting cameos and the engaging last 30 minutes that takes place in a cricket stadium where the director simultaneously elevated the mass images of Vijay and MS Dhoni.
Yuvan Shankar Raja‘s songs are just average, while the background score is one of his weakest works in recent times. Kudos to the visual effects team; the way they recreated the late Vijayakanth and Vijay's de-aging came out really well on the big screen. The action sequences and visuals up the ante.
Logic no, image yes
To conclude, Venkat Prabhu relies more on cinematic high moments rather than organic twists and turns in The Greatest of All Time but at the same time, he has given solid scope for Vijay to show his versatility. The film works majorly because of these meta references, surprising cameos and the arresting performance of the two Vijays!
The Greatest of All Time is more of a showreel of Vijay, who had only one more film left in his kitty before his political plunge, so Venkat Prabhu focused more on the magical moments and didn’t think too much about logic.
