{"id":632561,"date":"2026-09-22T15:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632561\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T15:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:34:10","slug":"heart-of-the-beast-review-brad-pitt-in-david-ayers-tender-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632561\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Heart of the Beast’ Review: Brad Pitt in David Ayer’s Tender Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf you\u2019ve seen the trailer for Brad Pitt<\/a>\u2019s new movie, you probably think that it\u2019s a harrowing tale of survival in a dangerous wilderness.<\/p>\n

\n\tDon\u2019t be fooled. Heart of the Beast is actually a love story, and one of the most moving to come along in a long time. That it\u2019s a love story between a man and his dog doesn\u2019t at all detract from its emotional impact. Indeed, Pitt displays an engagement with his co-star that may be his most resonant yet. Although to be fair, that isn\u2019t really saying much since two of his most notable cinematic romances are Meet Joe Black, in which he played Death, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in which his character spent most of the film trying to kill his wife.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHeart of the Beast\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tPacks a surprising emotional punch.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, September 25
Cast: Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe
Director: David Ayer
Screenwriter: Cameron Alexander
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated PG-13,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 41 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film, reuniting Pitt with his Fury<\/a> director David Ayer<\/a>, features the actor as James Belmont, retired after a 30-year stint with Special Forces that saw him facing combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he lives a quiet, solitary life. Well, not entirely solitary, since he shares it with Odon, his beloved German Shepherd combat dog, with whom he experienced many dangerous missions. Odon bears the physical and emotional scars of his years in combat, sporting titanium teeth and an artificial leg, and suffering from PTSD-induced nightmares.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe story begins with James flying his Cessna plane into the Alaskan wilderness (convincingly and gorgeously played by New Zealand) for a few days of camping and fly-fishing. The happy solitude is briefly interrupted by a stranger who happens by and spends the evening chatting away with the mostly silent James before taking off in a canoe early the next morning. He\u2019s played by J.K. Simmons<\/a>, making a strong impression in a brief amount of screen time and demonstrating yet again that he\u2019s one of the most invaluable character actors in the business.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn impending storm forces James and Odon to leave early, leading to the first of several surprises in the screenplay by Cameron Alexander. The plane winds up crashing into the water, not because of the weather conditions but rather James suffering a heart attack that renders him unconscious. Both he and Odon, who was thrown from the plane before it went down, miraculously survive, and when we later see James scarfing down aspirin by the handful we realize that he was well aware of his heart condition.<\/p>\n

\n\tThus begins the survival part of the story, with James and Odon having to traverse 58 miles of wilderness to reach the nearest road. Along the way they encounter a variety of life-threatening situations, including a massive grizzly bear, a treacherous tree-bridge crossing over a gorge with rapids below, and an attack by a pack of CGI wolves. Both man and beast suffer an array of debilitating injuries along the way.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut what makes the film special are not the survival elements, as grippingly and (mostly) convincingly filmed as they are, but rather the relationship between James and the loyal Odon, both of them constantly risking their lives for the other. Pitt makes his character\u2019s feelings for his dog touchingly palpable, most notably in a quiet scene in which he removes Odon\u2019s artificial leg and gently massages his stump. And while Odon doesn\u2019t have much in the way of dialogue (he does have a very expressive bark), the way he looks at his co-star is so adoring and non-judgmental you may find yourself reevaluating the relationships in your life.<\/p>\n

\n\tOdon is mostly played by Uber (we can forgive the name), who would be the instant frontrunner for the PATSY Award if that worthy honor still existed. Credit must be given to his trainers, handlers, and Pitt himself, who reveals so much chemistry with his canine fellow actor that his previous female co-stars might be jealous. For certain scenes Uber is doubled by three other dogs, all of them his sons, which must have made for an especially harmonious set.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeart of the Beast sometimes feel repetitive in its pile-up of perilous moments, but Ayer\u2019s expert direction and the fast-paced 101-minute running time prevent monotony from sinking in. And if the film\u2019s ending leaves you dry-eyed, you\u2019re clearly not an animal lover and someone I have no desire to meet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve seen the trailer for Brad Pitt\u2019s new movie, you probably think that it\u2019s a harrowing tale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[17940,41900,93,268574,61,60,29070,270],"class_list":["post-632561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-brad-pitt","tag-david-ayer","tag-entertainment","tag-fury","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-j-k-simmons","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}