Review: The Heart of the Beast

There are movies about dogs, and then there are movies about military dogs. Especially in films out of the USA, a military dog (and this includes police dogs) usually means you're going to get a story that is very much about a particular view of military (and police) service. How can you have any doubts about the bravery and honour of our brave servicepeople when one of them is a very good boy?

So while there's only the occasional glimpse in flashback of an American flag in this outdoors adventure, tonally there might as well be a faded but still visible flag filling the entire sky in every scene of this salute to the brave work done by dogs in combat in an unnamed American war in the Middle East. 

All this goes pretty much without saying in most US films about returned servicepeople. Thing is, everything that happens here could happen with Pitt's character being a regular outdoorsman with a troubled past and a dog that was injured in an accident. Grafting a "thank you for your service" angle onto these events makes it clear that it's a political choice by the filmmakers (screenwriter Cameron Alexander; director David Ayers), at a time when the American military's global rep isn't as glowing as it once was.

Oh right, the actual story: Belmont (Brad Pitt) and Odin (his dog, who has titanium teeth, an artificial leg, and PTSD from his wartime service) fly out to the Alaskan wilderness for a quiet week of fishing and drinking beer, interrupted only by some grizzled old salt (JK Simmons) who shows up for a night so we can get some dialogue.

On their flight out, there's a slightly surprising misdirect - you think they're going to crash for one reason then they crash for another reason - which means they now have to walk out to the nearest road. Climbing, stumbling, multiple animal attacks, getting dunked in a river, and Belmont repeatedly sticking parts of himself in crevasses (not always intentionally) follow.

Everybody loves watching a trek through scenic countryside, but that's pretty much all this has to offer. The survival side of things mostly simmers rather than stuns, despite a couple of set-pieces that do provide some drama. It's a strength that Pitt's character is competent; when things go wrong, it's not because he made a mistake. It's just tough out there. 

Aside from knowing how to make a spear (and his military service), there's not enough to Belmont as scripted to forge any real connection with an audience; it's left up to Pitt's natural charm to do all the heavy lifting, and while he does a solid job he falters whenever he's asked to bring his emotions to the surface.

Likewise, Odin (played by four different dogs in the movie) is an asset rather than a liability, but aside from his PTSD he rarely gets the opportunity to develop any kind of character beyond being, you know, a dog. It's a film where the characters are loosely sketched in, and this needed to be a lot more dramatic and suspenseful to make that approach work.

The Heart of the Beast is a film that assumes you're already keenly interested in both dogs and wilderness. Which is a reasonable assumption, even if that means it only does the bare minimum to make either of those things interesting. Just don't ask why the US military uses dogs in a war zone.

- Anthony Morris