Heart of the Beast
Director – David Ayer – 2026 – US – Cert. 12a – 100m
*****
A heart attack and his plane’s crash landing force a pilot and his dog to cross the Alaskan wilderness on foot – out in UK cinemas on Wednesday, September 23rd
In a framing device that opens and closes the narrative, a woman (Anna Lambe) is driving her car along a road in Alaska in the middle of nowhere. She is forced to stop by a dog standing facing towards her in the middle of the road. As if it were trying to tell her something…
Some days earlier, retired, special forces soldier James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his former combat dog Odin are travelling around Alaska by Cessna seaplane. They land on an unspoiled lake. Odin has a prosthetic leg. They pitch tent on the beach, then go exploring in the nearby woods where they are surprised to run across another human being.
There shouldn’t be anyone else around these parts, and the suspicious James reverts to combat mode, deploying his gun in readiness. However, the stranger (J.K. Simmons) turns out to be friendly, simply another person enjoying the solitude of the place, who tells them he’s pitched his own tent next to theirs. That night, he is impressed when the former soldier offers him a Belgian beer. In the morning, he goes on his way.
Shortly afterwards man and dog board their plane to continue their travels. Climbing to avoid an incoming storm, James suffers a debilitating heart attack which renders him unconscious. Somehow they both survives the crash landing in the forest below.
While the man and his dog’s military background will stand both of them in good stead, and James is more than competent at administering basic first aid, he clearly requires specialist medical help and needs to return to civilization for that. The nearest road is several days away and while the remote and isolated land the pair must cross to reach it is breathtakingly beautiful, it is also fraught with danger from perilous geographic features and wild animals.
What follows is essentially a survivalist picture.
Another setpiece involves the crossing of a pair of fallen tree trunks wedged across a ravine: James must go first to check the tree trunk will hold their weight, and then the dog must follow, but it doesn’t quite work out like that.
Then there are the animals. A majestic moose glimpsed at a distance. A sudden encounter with a Grizzly Bear with James hissing at Odin, “don’t look at his eyes”. Eyes are prominent; at night, shining pairs of eyes watch them. A wolf pack is on their trail which after a period of some considerable tension building turns into a terrific fight to the death. Some of these animals may well be computer generated, but for the most part they’re highly convincing on the screen.
The medical details are surprisingly well handled throughout. Heart attacks severe or minor can happen to anyone anywhere without warning, and the sequence of James having an attack whilst flying is completely believable, with Odin aware his master has lost consciousness and must be woken up if disaster is to be averted. The ravine crossing and the attack by wolves also exact their physical tolls, and you really get a feeling for the resultant traumas and their effects upon James.
When man, dog or both are resting or sleeping, they suffer from combat service nightmares. If the film has a flaw, it’s that this element is laid on a little too thick in places. However, this is a minor complaint which doesn’t really detract from the remainder of the proceedings.
Brad Pitt, a true movie star, has an extraordinary ability to just grin at a camera and command a cinema screen. It’s his trademark. Here, however, he ditches all that to play a loner who has been irrevocably scarred by serving as a soldier under fire, to which the actor brings a quiet, damaged reassurance. Effective to watch though that performance is, it’s only half of the equation, because this is as much about the dog as it is about the man. Odin is actually played by four dogs, Uber and his three sons, Seeka, Ryder and Hondo, who act as their father’s three stunt doubles.
It feels strange to be writing these words, but like the actor playing their onscreen human companion, the dog(s) give(s) (a) superb performance(s). At various places in the narrative, either the man gets into trouble and the dog helps him gets through it, or the other way around. In both cases, you believe one hundred percent that either of them would entrust the other with their life.
A note should be added for cinematographer Mauro Fiore’s sterling work in capturing the landscape of New Zealand standing in for Alaska, whether in the breathtaking, wide open aerial vistas of the early flying sequences or the grittier, closer-in terrain as the pair cross the land on foot.
While this could so easily have become mawkish or sentimental, it successfully avoids that trap to the credit of
director Ayer and his cast and crew, playing out as surprisingly effective. At 100 minutes, it feels about the right length too.
Heart of the Beast is out in cinemas in the UK on Wednesday, September 23rd.
Trailer: