{"id":71433,"date":"2025-08-16T15:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T15:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/71433\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T15:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T15:10:11","slug":"beast-of-war-review-a-gung-ho-second-world-war-movie-with-a-great-white-twist-melbourne-international-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/71433\/","title":{"rendered":"Beast of War review \u2013 a gung-ho second world war movie, with a great white twist | Melbourne international film festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year Australian shark movies have been particularly ravenous, swimming into different waters and taking a bite into other genres. Sean Byrne\u2019s Dangerous Animals arrived in local cinemas in June, blending the creature feature and serial killer movies into one foul fishy stew<\/a>, with Jai Courtney playing a psycho who feeds his victims to the sharks. And now we have Kiah Roache-Turner\u2019s Beast of War, a second world war movie with a great white twist, which cheekily begins with a text insert declaring that it was \u201cinspired by actual events\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s cheeky because this film doesn\u2019t exactly aspire for social realism, which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Roache-Turner\u2019s splatterific oeuvre (he cut his teeth helming monster movies about spiders<\/a>, vampires<\/a> and demons<\/a>). Then again, one could argue \u2013 as many have \u2013 that all art is inspired by life. So perhaps it\u2019s not too outrageous to connect this film to the sinking of HMAS Armidale<\/a>, the aforementioned historical event in which an Australian corvette was attacked by Japanese bombers in 1942, resulting in the deaths of 100 of its 149 crew members.<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t go into Beast of War expecting a stock-standard war movie, or a stock-standard shark movie. Roache-Turner borrows from various genre playbooks but conjures a distinctive, gung-ho, atmosphere-oozing work that\u2019s all his own. This blast of oceanic mayhem has a curious tone: not quite realistic, not exactly taking the piss.<\/p>\n

\u2018A very entertaining lead performance\u2019 \u2026 Mark Coles Smith (right) in Beast of War. Photograph: Melbourne international film festival<\/p>\n

It\u2019s led by a very entertaining lead performance from Mark Coles Smith (star of Mystery Road: Origin<\/a>), who builds dramatic heft but also channels the spirit of midnight movies as Leo, a character who\u2019s smart and principled but at any given moment may just punch a shark in the kisser. Leo is the only Indigenous soldier in a squadron of Australian troops that includes Will (Joel Nankervis), with whom he strikes up a friendship during military training. The training involves participating in drills and listening to a one-armed commander (Steve Le Marquand, having a good time) monologising about how he lost his arm \u201cat the elbow\u201d on the battlefield, while his mate \u201clost his head at the neck\u201d.<\/p>\n

The plot really swings into gear when the ship carrying the troops across the Timor Sea is sunk by the Japanese. Leo and Will are among a small group of survivors, who huddle on drifting wreckage with limited resources and limited options. There\u2019s a motor boat only metres away \u2013 but there\u2019s also, in the words of one character, \u201ca pissed-off 20-foot fish\u201d swimming nearby.<\/p>\n

Beast of War \u2018doesn\u2019t exactly aspire for social realism, which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Roache-Turner\u2019s splatterific oeuvre\u2019. Photograph: Melbourne international film festival<\/p>\n

Like so many before him, Roache-Turner takes some inspiration from Jaws, doing a lot of cutting around the shark \u2013 though he\u2019s not afraid to deploy vision of the gnarly chomper. The film is drawn to water from the start, including in an early flashback scene presented in milky reds and blues, which establishes a personal relationship between Leo and ravenous beasts of the sea. Another key part of Leo\u2019s character is his sheer bloody Australianess. The shark disturbs him, but not as much as another man\u2019s preference for Foster\u2019s. \u201cYou dirty bastard!\u201d he spits out. \u201cVB all the way!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cinematographer Mark Wareham (whose work includes Boy Swallows Universe<\/a>, The Survivors<\/a> and Cleverman<\/a>) conjures an exciting visual flavour: a beautifully damp look with swirling milky colour schemes and stylishly askew angles. The presence of thick fog has a narrative purpose, but it also adds atmospheric richness, adding an extra air of unreality. The fog also helps to psychologically close in the environment and distract from the fact that much of Beast of War was obviously shot on sound stages.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Saved for Later<\/p>\n

Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia’s culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

This smashingly well-paced and gung-ho film feels like it exists on the edge of consciousness \u2013 not quite reality, not entirely a nightmare, and certainly not a history lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year Australian shark movies have been particularly ravenous, swimming into different waters and taking a bite into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-71433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}