By Dan Skip Allen

Survival thrillers are films that have been around for many decades now. Whether it’s Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson living off the land as a mountain man and fighting native Americans in the film with the same name or three men on a boat trying to fend off and eventually kill a great white shark in “Jaws” or a man stranded on an island and talks to a volleyball named Willson in “Castaway, these kinds of movies have intrigued audiences for years. I even remember Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins trying to survive a killer Bear in “The Edge. Those are just four of many that have come out in theaters, but the latest stars Brad Pitt and a German Shepherd. That’s enough of a concept for me to be intrigued. After finally seeing “Heart of the Beast” I’m sure audiences will be just as intrigued as I was. 

James (Brad Pitt) is an ex-green berat who flies his little Cessna plane up to the Canadian wilderness to get away from everything and everyone. Hand his trust veteran German Shepard Odon settled down by a lake and set up camp. They fish and hunt together to make sure they are well fed. After being alone for a while, they come across an old man named Watson (JK Simmons) who canoed downstream from up north. He’s a chatty kind of guy and sets up his camp besides James and Odon. They sit and talk over Belgian beer, but the one thing Watson says that catches James’ ear is that there is bad weather coming. So after Watson left early in the morning, James packs up his stuff and loads his plane, and takes off with Odon himself. On the plane ride, he has a heart attack that makes him have a hard landing, and Odon flies out of the plane. The rest of the story is a survival tale for these two.

David Ayer is a director who is a bit hit and miss in his filmmaking career. Early on, he did “End of Watch”, a gritty LA police story. It got praise for the filmmaking style he used. Since then, he’s done some not so good action movies and “Suicide Sqad” in the DCEU. It wasn’t received very well. The ending and villain weren’t very good. There has been talk of a directors cut, which i heard was a much better version of the film.“Heart of the Beast” is a return to form for this director who has been much maligned over the course of his career. He has taken the survival thriller genre and made it his own. I was on the edge of my seat for much of this movie, wondering what was going to happen. Even though there was word of trouble on this production, I didn’t notice it in the final product. This was an incredible survival film.

I talk a lot about the cinematography of films I watch and review. I want to watch a good-looking film when I’m in a theater or at home on my nice big 75” television. I don’t want bad cinematography. It’s something that means a lot to me while watching a movie. This film had gorgeous cinematography from Mauro Fiore, the director of photography. He was able to capture the wilderness, mountains, and waterways of the great Canadian north perfectly. Every sequence, whether it’s James and Odon crossing a log bridge over a ravine or sitting on a rock overlooking a grassy field, looked immaculate to my eye. That’s when a movie has amazing cinematography ,when it looks so effortless to the person watching. I hope this gets noticed for awards next year because it deserves it.

I’ve seen my share of films featuring dogs in recent years. “Auther the King” with Mark Wahlberg, “Dog” with Channing Tatum, and “The Friend” with Naomi Watts are a few that come to mind. Dog movies are hit and miss like any other movie. Some can be good, and some can be bad. This one is a good one, and one of the main reasons is Odon (Uber II). He’s a German Shepherd who was a military scout dog in the Afghanistan war. He suffers from PTSD from his time in war, but his master James talks to him calmly and makes him feel better. During the course of the film, Odon, like his master, goes through quite a lot. He does some amazing rescue sequences and so forth. This is one of the best dogs I’ve seen on film in all of the years I’ve been watching dog movies. He’s amazing!

Brad Pitt is an actor I’ve admired ever since I saw him in “Thelma and Louise” back in the 90s. Ever since he’s played Louie in “Interview with a Vampire”, he’s played Cliff Booth in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Aldo Raines in “Inglorious Bastards” both Quentin Tarantino films. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for Pitt, who has literally done it all in his career. Including being an Oscar winning producer with his Plan B production company. This is the first time I’ve seen him in a survival thriller, though. He owns the screen at every moment. Whether it’s taping up a wound on his arm/torso after an accident or mounting for his best friend Odon after the crashed airplane, he brings all his skills as an actor to the forefront. He’s one of the best actors working today and you can see why during the course of this film. He owes the screen.

“Heart of the Beast” has everything you want in a survival thriller. Pulsepounding survival scenes in the air, on the ground, and in the water. Gutwrenching moments fending off dangerous animals and, most of all, surviving the elements. Ayer gives viewers a journey of true survival. The cinematography is gorgeous, the set pieces are incredible, and the acting from the two stars Pitt and Uber II are terrific. Ayer and Pitt have breathed new life into a genre that has been overdone in Hollywood in recent decades. With the fall season starting and cold weather starting to pop up here or there, this is the perfect movie for fathers to take their sons to if they’re not watching football this weekend. It has everything you’d want in a guy’s movie or one for those who love dog films as well.

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars