GOAT review: It's Ilayathalapathy versus Thalapathy. One is a good guy and the other is bad one. A young man vs an older one, bringing double the fun and double the action. Director Venkat Prabhu tries to show the audience why this film and Vijay is GOAT to his fans and the audience.

GOAT takes off in Kenya in 2008 where we see a special anti-terrorist squad (SATS) team recover stolen uranium from a group of terrorists led by Omar and Rajiv Menon (Mohan). Gandhi (Vijay) and his team members-cum-friends Kalyan (Prabhu Deva), Sunil (Prashanth), Shaaam (Ajay) come back victorious to India but create havoc in the mission and receive flak from their chief Nazeer (Jayaram) for this. The group of men are thick as thieves and like to party and this is what gets Gandhi into trouble with his pregnant wife Anu (Sneha), who is quite suspicious of his activities.

Chaos unfurls

To keep Anu and his son Jeevan happy, Gandhi decides to take them to Thailand when he is assigned a mission. And this is where things go terribly wrong. Gandhi and his family are attacked by a gang and Anu ends up in hospital while Jeevan ends up kidnapped and killed. Cut to years later and we see things have changed - Gandhi is on a desk job and he is separated from Anu. But terror strikes again in the form of Sanjay. What does Gandhi do? Who is Sanjay? How does the SATS team save the day? Does Gandhi reunite with his family? Is it a happy-ever-after?

Director Venkat Prabhu must first be lauded for writing a story that travels the world and has family sentiment, action, humour and drama interlaced with twists and plenty of tributes. He has given Thalapathy Vijay a story that is quite different from the Tamil star’s last few outings and it’s refreshing. Vijay is seen in two roles and the two characters are radically quite different and that’s what makes it interesting. Venkat Prabhu has loaded the film with a lot of tributes starting from Captain Vijayanath, SPB and Ajith’s Mankatha hook step to his late cousin, Bhavatharini, and numerous Vijay films.

A Vijay fan tribute

The first half of GOAT is extremely engaging with the director setting up the stage for superb interval block that takes you by surprise. There is a lot of family drama and high-octane action in various missions around the world before the film hits the interval. Post interval, the film takes off with a face off between the Gandhi and Sanjay and the director tries to keep it fast-paced. Through the film, Venkat Prabhu shows he is a fanboy of Vijay, the Kollywood (references to Ghilli, Thirumalai, etc) and the climax of the film definitely proves this. This is not to say that there are no lags in the film but the superb performance of Vijay and the large ensemble cast makes you forgive this. The director capitalises totally on Vijay’s trademark charm, sentiment, action, dance and humour and this is sure to appeal to his fans and the audience.

Venkat Prabhu has always worked with his friends and family and his cousin, Yuvan Shankar Raja, has scored the music for GOAT like his previous films. Yuvan has done a good job with the BGM and the remixing of the an old Ilaiyarajaa song is foot tapping. But the Bhavathirini song (made with the use of AI), Chinna Chinna Kangal, is quite touching and soulful.

GOAT is a Venkat Prabhu treat for Thalapathy Vijay fans and the audience. This Vijay film is an action-packed, fun, wholesome entertainer!

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