Direction: David Ayer
Country: USA
Heart of The Beast is a mawkish, uninspired survival thriller centered on the bond between James Belmont (Brad Pitt), a retired Special Forces veteran, and his loyal dog, Odin, a combat-trained German shepherd who, like his owner, suffers from PTSD. After his plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness, James must battle a roaring giant bear, a pack of hungry, ferocious wolves, and nature itself in order to survive.
Director David Ayer seems more concerned with putting the dog’s cute antics at the center of the film than with building genuine tension. The very modest screenplay is by Cameron Alexander, while the score by Jared Michael Fry verges on the unbearable. Pitt, who previously worked with Ayer on Fury (2014), is not particularly memorable either.
The film is bogged down by constant pathos and repetitive episodes, quickly overtaken by commercial ambitions at the expense of the punchy impact it so desperately needs.
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