The Greatest of All Time
In the middle of ‘The Greatest of All Time,’ a film in the Tamil language featuring the perpetually youthful Vijay, the audience is treated to a twist. This, I must tell you, pertains to my entire argument about how far Vijay would go to prove the title of the movie and his own innumerable self claims as well. That is what makes this movie, for sure, a better Vijay film. What’s more, this plot point is revealed early on, in the first hour of a three hour film, and has been mentioned in several of the reviews, so it is not surprising. With that in mind, however, if you want to stay pure and untarnished, please do not read further.
Vijay, the leading man of Indian cinema who has recently crossed his 50s, sails with pride when the critics say that he is a ‘multifaced tiger with various avatars’ and goes on to sing such praises in the beast. It is quite unusual to see Vijay at this stage of his career in ‘The Greatest of All Time’ donning two masks so that he could engage in a conflict with a young version of himself created using AI or only the myth of terrible CGI.
Nevertheless, Vijay portrays Gandhi, the popular powerful super spy, as well as the boy who cannot find courage to introduce himself as Vijay’s son, Jeevan. However, that kind of turn is not something new from Bollywood; fans of Amitabh Bachchan would know better (I have seen only two of the six or more movies wherein Big B happens to be playing the father figure of himself). That’s not the primary advantage of either Vijay or ‘The Greatest of All Time’. It is their creativity in selecting the appropriate director to finish out their child-like stars and his melodramatic tendencies that sets them apart.
Previous conflicts and battles may well explain why, as both learned from and quit the ring, Vijay’s character is entirely fluid and quite simply whatever the team need at that point in time.
In the beginning, Papa Gandhi could be best described as an Ethan Hunt. We see him fight off terrorists in Kenya while on a train armed with just a mask and voice transformer. He is a lousy husband, and probably the worst father who lies poorly to his hyper pregnant wife Anu (Sneha) who is suspecting that her husband is cheating on her.
Both the sides of Gandhi soon get to ouch, during an ill fated Bangkok trip which leads to the abduction and probably death of his son Jeevan (Akhil, in establishing scenes). Sixteen years later; wrinkles have taken the place of Gandhi’s dimples. He has grown wiser but also more sorrowful, and has a strained relationship with his wife, not until getting caught in a riot at the Indian embassy in Moscow. Over the crowd, Gandhi’s gaze is fixed at one guy. It’s like a cosmic treasure hunt. Could it be the second Vijay?
The return of Jeevan has set up an area that many viewers will find surprising, well pre-intermission for most viewers. Viewers soon become privy to a rather brutal series of flashbacks where terrorist activity, child trafficking, and spanking were all creatively utilized to paint a backdrop.
Prabhu (“Custody”) and his colleagues do their best to make their movie come across as over the top (The child trafficking plot is quite difficult to swallow). This is the last feather in the cap, Add very dramatic tendencies of Prabhu and one automatically predicts what Vijay does in the latter.
He is not yet a consummate ham though, but boy does his Jeevan impress with his twirling of the moustache as it best exemplifies the best musical moments in the movie that includes the best song along with the best group choreography (“Matta” or “Drunk”) and Vijay’s most character oriented dance in this movie and many others of his more recent outings. Even better, the unforeseen showdown between Vijay and Vijay delivers most of what you ought to expect from such a confrontation, including a bomb scare, a flying motorbike and even dangers relating to cricket.
With ‘The Greatest Of All Time’ Vijay trolls himself in very literal and quite funny fashions even referencing some of his older films such as ‘Thirumalai’ what of ‘Ghilli’ was released as late as early this year in India where it went on to break all sorts of box office records. And should you happen to miss those, some nicely done subtitles will definitely have you in place. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, Vijay has been on a roll and ‘The Greatest Of All Times’, this is clear, is not a movie he takes lightly. Here he gives fans the best dance in his more recent movies as well as the best fight and action scenes, and more engaging diversions and dramatic build up than even ‘Master’, his most recently decent film.
“The Greatest of All Time” however, continues to claim the audacious title because it undoubtedly goes out of its way more than its competitors.
For most big comedies, or earnest melodramas, I simply cannot be content unless the filmmakers undertake a vigorous exploitation of whatever genre movie cliches or tropes that they are cowardly toying around with. ‘The Greatest of All Time’ comes near enough that ideal and consistently at that.
For More Movies Visit Putlocker.