Beast(2022)- Movie Review
What do you get when you set a man eating lion upon Idris Elba and his family?
A surprisingly good, tense thriller.
Let’s discuss.
I did not plan on reviewing this film, but due to changes to Discord—I was unable to stream the film planned. Lucky for us, this replacement choice turned out to be incredible solid.
Beast is a 2022 action/thriller brought to us by director Baltasar Kormakur and writers Jaime Primak Sullivan and Ryan Engle. I know what you’re thinking—who?! The director Kormakur is better known as a producer, but has directed larger budget fair with his highest profile project being the less than good 2 Guns from 2013. The writing duo behind this film have less to show on their resumes with the highest profile project they’ve worked on being the absolute dumpster fire that was 2018’s Rampage.
Don’t let that dissuade you though.
The film focuses on Dr. Nate Samuels as he takes his daughter’s to visit a lifelong family friend on a nature reserve in South Africa following the death of his estranged wife. His hopes of repairing his strained relationship with his kids is put on hold when the actions of a group of poachers cause a detour for the group. What follows is a journey into the heart of darkness as Nate and his daughters must overcome their own enmity while evading gun-wielding poachers, dehydration, and of course the man eating lion. Will they survive the night against the will of nature, or will they overcome the Beast.
It’s a simple premise, but sometimes that’s what’s needed. Any further complication would require exposition to justify, which then would lead to a bloated, boring mess of a film.
This is a lean watch at 93 minutes and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s so refreshing to have a movie under 2 hours in length. Thanks to Lord of the Rings and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, film length has ballooned. For example, the shortest Marvel movie is The Incredible Hulk at 1 hour and 55 minutes. Sometimes, a longer film is warranted—see Infinity War, but most often it’s overkill—see Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Wakanda Forever, or Age of Ultron.
I hate this trend in film.
If you can’t tell a story visually in less than 2 hours, maybe you should make a television series, or I dunno—self edit. So many of these long-ass movies are just self flagellation by the studios or directors involved utilizing the excuse of “it’s what the fans want”, but really it’s just another way to shoe-in real world political or capitalistic agendas. Pushing merchandising is one thing, but just look at the latest Marvel release: Ant-man and The Wasp: Quantamania as a perfect example. There’s a good 30 to 45 minutes of the film concerning Scott’s daughter’s membership in an Antifa-like group and Scott being reprimanded for not being woke enough, random moments of preaching the ideals of communism, and a Bill Murray green screen cameo that looks so bad, it could have been shot by a high school drama department. *See the self-flagellation part, Mr. Fiege.
Beast avoids all of this by being sparing in its exposition. You get snippets of the relationship failure of Elba’s character and the strain between he and his daughter, but it’s just a peak. The true depths of their relationship are revealed during the action, leading to a streamlined, fast paced story that doesn’t choose a side.
Yes, Nate hasn’t been a good father, but his wife wasn’t as perfect as the daughter’s imagined. Their relationship is hampered by a character we only see in dreams and flashbacks, leading to true tension where you just hope that they can get along in order to survive.
The acting is superb. Elba and South African living legend Sharlto Copley play off one another perfectly. You really believe they’ve known each other forever. Copley’s character is also a great tool for the viewer as his point of view is our only truly objective one. He interacts with the daughters and shows us that they’re not 100% justified in their enmity toward their father, but their father is also not righteous in his beliefs either. The young actors in the film Iyana Halley and Leah Jefferies both play their roles admirably. These young women really came off as sisters. Their interactions are organic and heartfelt. They more than hold their own with their more tenured peers.
It helps that the CGI lions look far better than bigger budget movies. I was amazed how good the effects were. It’s obvious the lions aren’t real, but the effect and lighting used really do the trick. The animals feel dangerous as does the unforgiving environment.
The best comparison I can make is that this is a modern day Ghost and the Darkness, but with far less filler. This is a non-stop thriller.
You need to check this out.
Beast is currently streaming free on Amazon Prime Video.
