HEART OF THE BEAST: 4 STARS FOR THE DOG, 3 STARS OVERALL. “All about the dog.”
SYNOPSIS: The story of a man and his dog, “Heart of the Beast” sees Special Forces officer James Belmont and his loyal combat dog Odin fight for survival in the Alaskan wilderness. “It’s not who you live for… It’s who you’d die for.”CAST: Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe, Uber. Directed by David Ayer.
REVIEW: Brad Pitt stars as Special Forces officer James Belmont, a thirty-year combat veteran haunted by decades of battlefield action. To quiet his troubled mind Belmont and Odin, a three-legged German Shepard combat scouting dog who suffers from PTSD, who is also Belmont’s “greatest love and friend left on this earth,” take a trip to the Alaskan wilderness to experience the healing power of nature.
When their plane crash lands in the middle of nowhere, they are forced to rely on their combat skills to survive in the face of vicious cold, the unforgiving landscape, injury and threats from a variety of predators. The hurdles are huge, but, as Belmont says, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters,” says Belmont. “It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
Like “The Littlest Hobo” with a taste of “The Revenant’ thrown in for seasoning, “Heart of the Beast” is a simple survival story anchored by a great performance.
But I’m not talking about Brad Pitt. He’s fine, doing a good job with a thinly written character, a resourceful soldier haunted by his past. His work is understated, far more subtle than you might expect from a movie like this.
No, the star here is Uber, the canine actor who plays Odin. He manages to do something George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon have not been able to do, and that’s steal every scene they perform together.
Their relationship—they’re alone on screen for 90% of the movie—is the film’s emotional core. Belmont treats the dog as an equal, a fellow soldier who, like him, has been to hell and back. They have a bond, and that unbreakable connection is the film’s main draw.
Perhaps that’s why a number of flashbacks to their early military service left me with the feeling that director David Ayer, working from a script by Cameron Alexander, missed the chance to tell the more interesting story of the beginning of Belmont and Odin’s bond and battlefield experiences.
Set against the rugged beauty of New Zealand (standing in for Alaska), “Heart of the Beast’s” action is episodic, predictable and only occasionally pulse-racing. It’s a raw portrait of endurance, with a few grim moments and nice cameos from J.K. Simmons as a fellow traveler and “North of North’s” Anna Lambe, but it is the connection between man and dog that carries the movie and may have you reach for a Kleenex in its final twenty minutes.
