Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed in this review are solely those of Marlon Wallace and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of WBOC.
Idris Elba got his first leading role in a major motion picture with Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls (2007) where Elba played a father struggling to care for his daughters. Here, Elba does a similar thing. Since that 2007 drama, Elba has struggled to find a leading role that has afforded him the success that someone of his caliber, charm and sex appeal should have. He’s appeared in several blockbusters, but he’s never been the lead. He got a lot of critical acclaim in Beasts of No Nation (2015), which is set in Africa, the home to Elba’s parents. Here, Elba is again doing a film set in his parents’ native continent. That 2015 awards contender didn’t catapult Elba in the way that many thought it would. Elba has been instead relegated to B-level thrillers, if he were to get the lead. One example was The Mountain Between Us (2017), which was a man-versus-nature type of story.
Filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur has done several man-versus-nature narratives within his career. His previous feature was Adrift (2018), which focused on a woman versus the sea. Before that, Kormákur did Everest (2015), which focused on a man versus the titular alpine. Before that, he did The Deep (2012), which was about a person again versus the ocean. It seems Kormákur is more attracted to stories on the water and in the cold, which makes sense, given that the filmmaker is from Iceland. Here, however, he’s working outside of his comfort zone. Instead of being in or near water, this film takes place in a veritable desert. Instead of the cold, there’s the unbearable African heat.
Elba stars as Nate Samuels, a doctor living in New York City. At the beginning of this film, we see him arriving by plane to a game reserve in South Africa. He arrives with his two teenage daughters. His wife and the mother to his daughters recently died from cancer. She was from South Africa, so Nate takes his daughters there so that they can see their mother’s homeland. He also wants to take them on a safari through the savanna.
What he doesn’t know is that the day before his arrival, a group of poachers killed a pride of lions, except for one. That one lion is now roaming the land, exacting revenge on humans for what the poachers did. If anything, this film is about poaching and the effects it has on animals. For fans of true-crime documentaries, Tiger King (2020) introduced many to the issues of wildlife conservation, especially in regards to big cat or large feline protection. There, it’s more about individual animals being subjected to problematic captivity. Here, it’s more about the species as a whole being endangered or put into a vulnerable status. What this film might be more about though is the emotional effect that the loss of lion prides might have as a ripple to the overall environment. Yet, that’s more an undercurrent.
(from left) Meredith Samuels (Iyana Halley) and Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley) in Beast, directed by Baltasar Kormákur.
Iyana Halley (This Is Us and Abbott Elementary) co-stars as Meredith Samuels, the eldest daughter to Nate. She’s into photography like her late mother. When it comes to fighting, doing and saying what she wants in defense of herself, she’s very much like her mother in that regard too. She makes it clear to tell her father that she’s upset at him for his behavior leading up to their separation and her mother’s eventual death. The film doesn’t do much more with this dynamic or relationship. It’s simply a checking of the box that dictates that the characters in a film like this need some kind of tension to kick things off.
The film doesn’t take too much time to dive into that father-daughter tension. It’s just obligatory set-up to get us into what is meant to be a thrill ride. It’s not lost that Meredith at one point is wearing a T-shirt with the logo for Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) because there’s a lot here that steals from Jurassic Park. The idea of children being trapped in a Jeep or sport utility vehicle, while a large, wild animal attacks them was a classic scene from that Spielberg hit. Kormákur essentially re-creates that Spielberg scene. The ultimate fate of the Jeep in Jurassic Park is also virtually stolen here. However, the idea of a parent and child being trapped in a vehicle, while a large wild animal attacks them was something that we saw in Stephen King’s Cujo (1983).
It’s been a while since I’ve seen that film, but my recollection is that the animal in Cujo, which was a rabid dog, was scarier than the animal here. It was probably the makeup that was on the dog that sold it a lot, but a lot of the terror in Cujo had to do with the fact that the child in that film was younger and certainly gave a more terrified performance that really sold the fear. It’s not to say that Halley or Leah Jeffries (Rel and Empire) who plays Norah, the younger sister, don’t give a good performance. Their performances just aren’t as bold or underlined. There’s no crying for example. Not that it’s needed, but, this film never affords them time to sell that fear in subtler or more intimate ways. They’re mainly there for plot or exposition reasons.
Why this film never affords them that time is probably because of the way Kormákur shoots this thing. There are a lot of scenes that are shot using one, continuous take or tracking shots. A lot of filmmakers will use this technique in order to heighten the action happening by not having any cuts or edits. It also conveys said action in what’s supposed to be real time. It’s more of an immersive technique. There are some filmmakers like Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu who are masters at executing one, continuous takes. There are some takes here that are effective, but, Cuarón and Iñárritu are good at incorporating slower or more still moments to punctuate the emotions. I’m not sure Kormákur is effective in that regard.
Often, in films that are man-versus-nature, the nature is just a rough terrain or bitter landscape. Such was the case with Elba in The Mountain Between Us. However, there are times when it’s man versus some animal. Such was the case in Jurassic Park or even Jaws (1975). It’s rare that the film is literally about man having to physically fight an animal. It’s rare that the climax of the film is literally a man having to come to fisticuffs with some creature, unless it’s like Sigourney Weaver at the end of Aliens (1986). The Grey (2012) teased such a climax but didn’t deliver. Yet, The Grey managed to be a better film emotionally than this one. The Revenant (2015) by Iñárritu actually did deliver in showing us a man fightinf an animal, namely a grizzly bear, and it was epic.
The Revenant set the bar when it comes to that kind of depiction. This film teases Elba’s character fighting a lion. The film eventually gets there. It’s an intense and crazy scene. Yet, I didn’t walk away from it feeling as I did after watching the fight with the bear in The Revenant.
Rated R for violent content, bloody images and some language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 33 mins.
In theaters.
