Beast

“We’re in his territory now”, grimaces Martin (Sharlto Copley), the manager of the Mopani Game Reserve in South Africa, to which he has invited an old friend, the recently widowed Dr Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) and his two daughters, Norah and Meredith (Iyana Halley and Leah Sava Jeffries). As the characters occupy the territory of the murderous, vengeful lion of the film’s representatively lean, mean title, so are we, the audience, in the territory of director, Baltasar Kormákur, who depicts the overwhelming might of nature with the proficiency of his most recent blockbuster offerings, Everest and Adrift. 

The film opens with a group of local poachers attacking a pride of lions. Only one lion is not ready to fall to the whim of these vicious mercenaries, and his survival sets in motion an arc of revenge which, with almost Terminator-esque indestructibility, he is determined to consummate. There is something of The Birds in the almost human intentionality depicted, although the lion’s vengeful motives are much less ambiguous than the titular birds of Hitchcock’s masterwork. As the beast indiscriminately attacks the species to which the poachers belong, Martin, Nate and his daughters are next in line to endure his wrath, as Martin supervises them on a safari expedition of the reserve. 

This premise could easily have fallen into the realms of farce, but Kormákur’s handle on the material lends the film a lean efficiency and evenly cultivated tension. The extensive use of POV long takes gives the film an immersive urgency and momentum, while the landscapes, shot on location in South Africa by Philippe Rousselot, allow for a visual treat that underpins the primal, muscular action. The climactic battle sequence, shot in one take, is also a minor cinematic miracle – one in which CGI, VFX and Elba’s raw, physical performance combine in perfect, joyous polyphony. 

There are, of course, times when characters, particularly Nate’s daughter Meredith, act with an illogical abandon in order to propel the action forward, in the fashion of frustratingly irrational slasher potboilers. But it is as if Kormákur takes the audience by the hand and says, “I know – just go with it.” The more one suspends disbelief at some of the inherent absurdities of the premise, the easier it is to bask in the cinematic joy of its execution.

Matthew McMillan

Beast is released nationwide on 26^th August 2022.

Watch the trailer for Beast here: