Beast Review

Sharks, whales, wolves, and bears served as the villains in the movies to show the rampart force of nature. Lions have also gotten this treatment with Beast.

Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) is a doctor and widower who takes his daughters to South Africa. They met Nate’s old friend and gamekeeper, Martin (Sharlto Copley) who takes the family to private areas of the Mopani Game Reserve. However, this area of the reserve is being terrorised by a rogue lion and the group is stuck in a desperate battle for survival.

Beast was a simple film. The plot can be summed up as a family getting trapped and hunted by a wild animal. Beast was an elevated B-Movie. That might sound demeaning but it was an entertaining romp.

Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley gave the film a lot of star power and the director, Baltasar Kormákur has a solid filmography. Kormákur has made several survival films, as shown with The Deep, Everest, and Adrift. So, Beast was material Kormákur was comfortable with.

Beast aimed to have character drama. There was tension between Nate and his daughters because Nate and his wife had divorced, and she died from cancer. The daughters were resentful to Nate because of this, and he was trying to make amends. Their mission for survival ended up being an extreme form of family bonding. They needed to co-operate if they wanted to survive. Nate had an extra incentive to survive because he wasn’t just fighting himself, he needed to protect his teenage daughters who didn’t have survival skills.

Another way Beast tried to elevate itself was through dream sequences. There were moments when Nate dreamt of his deceased wife. This made Beast even more like the Liam Neeson film The Gray where a group of oil workers are stranded in the Alaskan wilderness and were hounded by wolves. Neeson’s character visualised his wife who also died of cancer. The Grey has become a cult classic, so Beast was in good company.

The risk with these types of films has been villainising wild animals. This happened to sharks and wolves with Jaws and The Grey. Beast tried to avoid this problem. Beast opened with the lion’s pride getting killed by a group of poachers, so he wanted revenge. This issue was the lion can’t determine who was friend or foe. However, due to the lion being so determined it ended up making Beast feel a lot like the notorious horror film Bear. The filmmakers also made a point of showing a pride of good lions who were friendly with humans. Martin was shown to care greatly for the lions in the reserve.

Philippe Rousselot was brought in to be the cinematographer. He was a wise appointment because his camera work was exemplary. He used a lot of long and continuous shots which really enhanced the tension. It looked like Rousselot was influenced by Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on Children of Men. Children of Men was a film known for having long, steady cam shots. Beast’s steady cam shots were particularly impactful when Nate and Martin were exploring an empty village, and when there was action in the cars.

Beast was a film that Mark Kermode would describe as a ‘nuts-and-bolt’ film. It was a well-made and functional film that was hardly revolutionary and worked as a piece of entertainment.