Oh he’s a Beast all right; they’re not lion. In a film that is absolutely nothing like The Ghost and the Darkness -nothing whatsoever- an angry African lion makes a ginsu knife commercial out of every human it can find. Somehow, I am reminded of the time I bought a collar for my pet with a tag reading “NO KITTY THAT’S A BAD KITTY.”
Beast, clearly not a Beauty, is literally the last of his pride. Poaching morons went and shot up his fam while they were at the dinner table. Do lions hunt you while you’re relaxing to “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?” That hardly seems fair. Anyhoo, for some reason, Beast takes exception to dudes killing every last family member of his crew and decides to take it out on the entire continent.
Meanwhile, in another film, Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) has decided to take the fam on vacay. And his fam is down to Idris and two daughters; his estranged wife died of cancer, a fact the film needed to impress upon us every five minutes in case we forgot. This fact is oft accompanied by dismissing or scornful behavior by the older daughter towards dad, something I never tire of seeing on film.
Being this is South Africa, of course, the place has no modern devices to transmit news, nor methods of communication better than two tin cans and a piece of string, so naturally, Dr. Nate and his girls have no idea there’s a man-killing lion on the loose out there … killing … men. Do we forgive the screenplay this? I guess we have to; otherwise there is no film. Luckily Sharlto Copley shows up to act as a control experiment to demonstrate this lion’s behavior.
Do you want to see an angry killer lion on the loose? If so, Beast delivers. Is it realistic? Well, hey, look! There’s an angry killer
lion on the loose! What was the question again? Man, life for a single parent is tough enough without alterations to the food chain. I can’t say I was taken with Beast, but I cared enough to see it through. I did want to see the girls survive even if this latest Hollywood rant about absentee fatherism is weak and tiresome.
With a film like Beast, I often wonder if the writer ever considers how obnoxious American Exceptionalism or just plain Americanism seems to other cultures. The premise of this film is a –how shall we put this?- “triggered” “radicalized” lion manages to kill an entire African village without taking so much as a scratch of damage. Really? So lemme get this straight: the people who live with the threat of lions on a daily basis don’t know what to do when one attacks? What, it never came up? “Mama, what if a lion enters our village looking for blood?” “Just lay down, Mbute, cuz you dead.” Oh, but the weaponless American doctor with no combat training … the guy who has only in his lifetime ever seen domesticated lions across a lion-safe divide … that guy has the skill set and experience to handle an angry king of the jungle. Right.
You better give that lion a berth far and wide
Cuz he’s not letting transgressions slide
Don’t ask if he’s calm
This African “tiger bomb”
You kinda asked for it; you hurt his pride
Rated R, 93 Minutes
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Writer: Ryan Engle, Jaime Primak Sullivan
Genre: Poaching the hard way?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The kind of person who would like to wrestle a lion
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Africans, lions
