If we say of a human that he is a beast, he knows he is doing an offense to the animal, because the most ferocious beast is man. How not to share the concept if we are talking about African poachers, people who kill protected animals for pure profit, to obtain only small parts for resale, horns for rhinos, tusks for elephants, hands for gorillas, teeth and claws the Lions. It would be sacrosanct, even if unlikely, that every so many animals would get angry and think about taking revenge.
The history of cinema is full of animals in revolt against mankind, for speed we mention only a few titles that refer precisely to lions, because of this species of felines that are spoken of in the film Beast, on the big screens from 22 September. We remember Spirits in the Dark, with Michael Douglas playing a “white hunter” struggling with two huge man-eating lions, then The Great Roar, with the personal lions of the protagonists Tippi Hedren and his daughter Melanie Griffith, struggling with the their semi-domestic cats but not enough, and the film that most of all resembles Beast, that is Prey, from 2007, with Peter Weller. We also add the TV series Zoo, in which the revolt involved several species.
Here we meet Idris Elba who is Nate, a surgeon on vacation in South Africa with his two teenage daughters. The holiday has little joy, in fact it is a pilgrimage in honor of Nate’s ex-wife, who died of cancer, leaving a trail of pain and resentment that is dividing father and daughters. Arriving in the area, they meet the nice Martin (Sharlto Copley), childhood friend of Nate and the deceased, who takes them to a distant area, where the lions are repopulated, where tourists are not allowed. There, too, the only plague is poachers. Apart from any sentimental or ecological discourse, killing animals in those areas also produces economic damage, because it ruins those parks that attract tourists and heavy currency so much.
Despite the two harassing girls (now there is no American movie or TV series without some unbearable teenagers), the day would seem splendid, but in this case there would be no film. And then, preceded by disturbing signals, the usual super-lion, very angry and rightly assassin, arrives, well determined to make humans pay their sins so imprudent as to fall under his claws. Obviously things happen for which humans get stuck in the jeep, without radio signals, without water, variously injured, and so on, fishing in the repertoire of this kind of film.
Thus begins the usual game of the cat with mice, with assaults, escape attempts, assaults, retreats, new assaults. A couple of jeeps that come to sow hope in the little group, turn out to be teeming with poachers, demonstrating how true the famous saying is, that one really often falls from the pan into the fire. So far one could complain about a certain lack of imagination and be amazed that well-known actors with a good reputation are involved in the operation, such as Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley, and a director like Baltasar Kormákur, author of more successful films such as Everest, Contraband, Cani loose, and another example of survival movie like Stay with me.
Because, in the name of the famous “let’s divide” of horror films, the protagonists will face a series of choices of hilarious idiocy, aggravated by the two famous teenagers, two who just to listen to the advice of their father do not have the slightest intention. The dialogues are a concentrate of “how are you? are you OK?? it will all be fine! stay in the car! Idris endures an attack of the lion of at least two quintals, from laying a buffalo, even if only for the imbalance of the tonnage, the fragile girls repel the attacks by kicking the lion on the nose, in short, situations that are really too improbable not to arouse sarcasm multiply.
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Even if the script had to go ahead, one could exaggerate less and make everything more plausible. We add that the top is reached when, in the besieged jeep and already after the first claws, the girls find time to argue about the divorce of their parents, for which they hold their father responsible. Maybe later, there would be an answer.
All this makes Beast even in its brevity (an hour and a half), a film whose existence leaves us perplexed, almost out of time (it could have been accepted in the 80s perhaps). On the other hand, the GC with which the lions are made is valid on the whole from these years. Even the photograph is by Oscar winner Philippe Rousselot.
Of course, it could be objected that sometimes a film of pure escapism is needed, that detaching from everyday life to let ourselves be overwhelmed by exotic and dramatic adventures, can do well. But these are no longer times, we fear, there are too many discounted passages, the turning points of telephone calls, the issues of fashion. Paradoxically, Beast could please children, as long as they are not impressionable, precisely because they would not pay attention to the many, too many inconsistencies and absurdities.
#Beast #review #Cujo #lion