Measuring up to the aspiration that the film's title spells out is by all reckoning a tough ask. Superstar Vijay, as is his wont, does not baulk at the challenge. He goes all out to embody what his fans believe him to be and manages to land on his feet at the end of the formulaic exercise.
Diving into the project in a father-and-son dual role, Vijay carries The Greatest of All Time, patchy at the best of times, on his shoulders. He navigates the hurdles that are inevitable in a film as over-plotted as this with customary flair, if not with consistent success.
Director and co-writer Venkat Prabhu weaves the film around the semi-retirement leitmotif that Vijay has employed in a few of his recent releases (Beast, Leo). The hero comes out of years of living in the shadows and returns to the thick of the action.
Amid a whole bunch of deadpan throwbacks to the megastar's own films and stray nods to other Tamil movies and songs that place him in the larger context of mass cinema history, The Greatest of All Time perhaps contains a meta-allusion to the upcoming end of the Vijay acting career in preparation for a plunge into full-time politics