The Greatest Of All Time Review

Ashwin Ram

Thalapathy Vijay’s The Greatest of All Time, also stars Prashanth, Prabhu Deva and plenty of other artists. Directed by Venkat Prabhu, music by Yuvan Shankar Raja and the project is bankrolled by AGS Entertainment.

Premise:

Vijay and gang are part of the SATS team, who are all part of the RAW agency. What happens when Vijay decides to include his family for a secret mission to Thailand, how their lives change after a dramatic situation that occurs there forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

Revenge is the base, but director Venkat Prabhu has packed it smartly as a screenplay film. The conflict doesn’t get established in the initial hour, the arrival point is only after the interval, beautifully staged till that point by building all the scenes around it. There is a purpose for most of the characters, the sentiments and twists work well as intended. The first half is solid by neatly establishing the world, packaged with fun family moments, touching emotions and some racy action stretches. The second half has some lags, it opens well by revealing the core subject but after which the flow was flat for quite a bit. But thankfully it was never pointless nor illogical anywhere, just the screenwriting isn’t crisp and it went on for quite long to set the final clash. Also, the main villain is out for the hunt with a smart plan, but missed out to create an hard impact, it’s probably because the initial situations after the character’s true identity is revealed were weak. The flaws fade away in the fitting finale, that is filled with amazing high points. The writing is very decent, there are some smart spots and a few downers as well. Vijayakanth’s cameo is a tribute to him, sloppy face-mapping that is balanced with a cinematic logic. A couple of other cameos are super exciting for the theatre viewing. The lengthy climax sequence is the show-stealer, gripping and a sure shot treat for everyone. The credit scene is a good tease and the bloopers make us leave the cinema hall with a smile.

Performances:

Vijay leads the pack from the front, shoulders the film with a sharp dynamic performance by showing splendid variations, calm as Thalapathy and storm as Ilaya Thalapathy, the de-aging looked super satisfying but the dialogue delivery for that role is messy at times. Key role for Prashanth and he does it with easing grace. Same with Prabhu Deva, the leading gang has that in-built friendship to it that looks instantly believable on-screen. Mohan’s negative characterisation is just minimal fearsome, but there’s much more to the threat aspect that convinces the whole idea. Brief yet a solid emotional role for Sneha. Casting pitch-perfect, Jayaram, Yogi Babu, Premgi, etc all have delivered their best.

Technicalities:

A substandard audio album by Yuvan Shankar Raja, visually improvised with cool dance steps and some memorable montages. Pretty decent background score, elevations for the slow-motion shots are neat and the tension is built well for the appropriate situations. Shot in exotic locations across countries, exceptional camera work by Siddharth Nuni, good clarity shots for both the fast-paced action stretches and paused well in the dramatic portions. 3 hours duration might sound too much on paper, but it's fitting time for this big script with many characters, there are some shortcomings in the latter, yet engaging on the whole. Not-so-exciting stunts, the terrains are different but nothing stunning, however not bad. VFX output is satisfactory, nowhere nagging but the usage is less. Kudos to AGS Entertainment for the lavish production, gutsy expenditure and credits to them for letting the creator shoot live in multiple foreign countries as the script demands it.

Bottomline

A screenplay based action flick, some bumps in the second half. Yet an engaging watch filled with many commercially charged theatre moments.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME - An Entertaining Package!

Rating - 3/ 5