Heart of the Beast has a story that is as old as time, offering very little room for innovation for director David Ayer, but the film manages to tug at our heartstrings thanks to Ayer’s assured direction. The film follows an army veteran named James Belmont (Brad Pitt) who experiences a heart attack while flying his aircraft with his loyal dog Odin aboard, only to crash into the Alaskan wilderness. To make his way back to an area of civilisation, he should trek for around 50 miles with Odin, but the perils and pitfalls in the forest make it an unforgiving path back home for them. David Ayer handles the basics of storytelling perfectly in Heart of the Beast, and while the film never reinvents the wheel for survival dramas, it soars with its heartfelt portions of human-animal bonding.
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Brad Pitt, Uber, JK Simmons
It is clever how Ayer offers some backstory to help the audience understand what kind of life Belmont and Odin have had before they get stranded in the middle of nowhere. The filmmaker could have started the story with the plane crash itself. Avoiding such a beginning keeps the film from being too slick or a disposable piece of escapism that is easy to gobble up for canine lovers. Early on we learn that Odin experiences harrowing flashes of his days in the battlefields in his sleep, and that Belmont is not immune to post-traumatic stress disorder either. The flashback, their shared trauma and their reactions to the dangers of the forest, such as sudden encounters with wild animals, make it obvious that they have had their worst days long behind them. Rather than injuries from the creatures of nature, the protagonists’ concern is about whether both of them can make it back alive so that they can spend another lifetime together. We root for the characters involuntarily in such films and wish only the best for them, but David Ayer does not take our affinity for granted.
Ayer makes Belmont and Odin’s journey feel immersive and vicarious, making the audience fear for their lives each time they step into a perilous path. The falls from great heights, the cuts from protruding branches and other animals, and the resulting wounds. They all land with painstaking realism in the film. At the same time, the filmmaker is smart enough to realise that he does not have to use the encounters to amp up the spectacle; instead, he lets the human drama be the heart of the story. There is also just enough suspense in the film to make it all the more engaging.
One of the most challenging jobs for a filmmaker is to extract moving performances out of animals. As Odin, the German Shepherd dog Uber puts in a credible performance that makes the audience care for him and that helps land his deep bond with his human companion. It is obvious that the makers have trained and prepared the dog for the harsh conditions, but the performance never comes across as stagey or manufactured. Each time Odin reacts to something Belmont does, Uber’s expressive face alone communicates every nuance of the character’s emotion. One wonders whether there has been a dog in cinema who is this memorable since John Carpenter’s The Thing. In a way, this is remarkable because Odin is an ordinary dog albeit one with an extraordinary background rather than Hachiko. On the other hand, Brad Pitt is in his element as a lonely and world-weary soldier carrying years of war wounds and wondering whether he can somehow make his way back home with his canine friend. Together, they are an absolute joy to behold, conveying the depth of a relationship that is telepathic. This emotional depth makes Heart of the Beast a true delight for dog lovers, keeping it moving without turning schmaltzy or overly sentimental.
The film is also astute enough to understand that Odin and Belmont are still at the mercy of nature and cannot do something heroic to make their way out, despite their years-long experience in the army. Ayer deserves credit for not falling for the trap of capturing the beauty and the harshness of the wilderness too much for blunt metaphors. At the same time, Cameron Alexander’s writing ensures a payoff for the story that is as heartrending as it is heartwarming, making the long and arduous journey fully worth your while.
