Heart of the Beast – Movie Review
Heart of the Beast – Movie Review
This film is pretty much everything you expect it to be. Does that automatically make it a bad thing? No. You’re getting a fairly predetermined story for the price of admission, backed by fantastic visuals, a very well-played part from one handsome furry friend, and, of course, Brad Pitt.
Pitt carries a surprising amount of this movie without having much dialogue to lean on. He has to reach into that emotional side of acting where facial expressions, body language, and reactions have to do most of the work, all while sharing much of the screen with an animal. That’s not exactly an easy assignment. But Brad Pitt is an A-lister for a reason, and he pulls it off.
That doesn’t mean the entire film works because of him. Although, if we’re being fair, Pitt may very well be the saving grace as we watch one expected life obstacle after another get thrown in his path.
Before Murphy’s Law completely takes over, we’re introduced to Odin, who somehow doesn’t seem to get much casting recognition online. Odin is immediately established as far more than a companion to Special Forces veteran James Belmont. These two are brothers. They’ve seen some serious firefights during their years of service together, and the movie makes that bond clear very early on.
Both James and Odin are dealing with the aftermath of what they experienced in combat. The film shows each of them struggling with trauma, with one comforting the other whenever those memories begin creeping back in. It’s probably one of the better ideas in the film because their relationship never feels like the typical man-and-dog setup. There’s history there.
Then J.K. Simmons shows up as Watkins for what feels like five minutes.
Simmons is always fun to watch, but his appearance here feels strangely manufactured. It’s almost as if somebody decided they needed Brad Pitt and J.K. Simmons in a scene together, so there you go. Mission accomplished.
To be fair, Watkins does provide some background on James and Odin, so the scene isn’t completely pointless. It just feels overly planned. Watkins shows up, explains some things, warns them about what’s coming, and then Watkins goes bye-bye.
Why not let James reveal some of that history himself? Maybe talk about their combat tours or what the two of them survived together? This is their story, after all.
James and Odin eventually take off in their small twin-engine plane despite Watkins warning them that a storm is coming. Because, naturally, when the wise old guy tells you a storm is coming in a survival movie, you absolutely get in the plane.
From there, the movie really begins.
James experiences an incident in the air, the plane violently crashes, and Heart of the Beast officially enters its “what can possibly go wrong next?” phase.
The answer: pretty much everything.
Murphy’s Law takes over. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and most of the time you can see the next problem coming well before James does. Still, you tag along for the ride because Pitt and Odin are good enough together to keep things moving.
After several expected setbacks, the movie eventually arrives at one massive one. There’s a violent and messy confrontation that comes with a serious price, and once it begins unfolding, it isn’t difficult to figure out where things are headed.
That predictability becomes one of the movie’s biggest problems.
Heart of the Beast desperately wants to pull on the heartstrings. It wants you invested in James and Odin enough that every setback hurts a little more than the last.
For me, it just never completely got there.
Maybe I can blame some of that on the flu bug I had while watching it. Hence the late review. But even taking that into consideration, the emotional punch never landed the way the movie clearly intended it to. Somewhere between the woods, the swamp, the survival elements, and one unfortunate event after another, that emotional connection got lost.
It certainly didn’t hit me anywhere near the way something like Marley & Me did. Not even close.
That doesn’t mean Heart of the Beast is a bad movie, and it certainly doesn’t mean it won’t connect differently with someone else. Animal stories have a way of finding the right nerve with certain viewers, and this one may very well do exactly that.
It just didn’t find mine.
Perseverance, will, fight, faith, and courage are all built into these two characters. The sheer determination to keep moving forward, no matter what is thrown in their way, becomes a big part of what James and Odin represent. There’s something very human about that idea of pushing through when everything tells you to stop. And when you have someone beside you carrying that same drive, that same fight, the impossible suddenly feels a little more attainable.
Brad Pitt is fantastic throughout, especially considering how much of the performance relies on emotion rather than dialogue. Odin is superb and arguably steals a good portion of the movie. J.K. Simmons does what J.K. Simmons always does and makes the most out of his limited screen time.
In the end, Heart of the Beast is a beautifully shot, well-acted survival movie trapped inside a story that rarely surprises you. You know the road is going to get ugly. You know something else is going to go wrong. And you have a pretty good idea where the emotional punches are coming from before they arrive.
But Pitt and Odin make the journey worth sticking around for.
Sometimes knowing exactly where a movie is headed isn’t enough to ruin the ride. Heart of the Beast proves that. It just would have been nice if the road getting there had a few more turns.