Brad Pitt Heart of the Beast Review: Cheesy but Entertaining — SkimNews
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- Heart of the Beast stars Brad Pitt as Belmont, a retired US military special forces veteran who lives in remote Alaska with his service dog Odin, portrayed by four different German shepherds
- David Ayer directs from Cameron Alexander's screenplay, reuniting with Pitt after their WWII thriller Fury, with supporting turns from JK Simmons as a grizzled ex-goldminer and Anna Lambe as a young woman
- A heartstoppingly dramatic event forces Belmont and Odin on a perilous foot journey through hostile terrain, with Odin squaring off against a digital bear and digital wolves
- The reviewer compares the man-and-dog dynamic to Pitt's Cliff Booth and his attack pitbull Brandy in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and links the story's themes to Jack London's wilderness hardihood
- Pitt's performance is tested by an emotional sequence in which he sobs then laughs at the apparent death of Odin, and the review concludes he is 'the right guy in the right film'
- The Guardian calls the film 'a bit cheesy' and warns its final moments 'will test your credulity,' while crediting top-drawer visual effects for maintaining tension despite some digital creature work
Why it matters: For Pitt and Ayer, the Fury reunion yields an entertaining but formulaic survival film that doubles down on the actor's established loner-with-a-loyal-companion template, leaning on sentimentality and spectacle rather than narrative risk. The Guardian judges the cheese forgivable largely because Pitt fits the material so cleanly, while IndieWire's separate headline frames the same film as a 'predictably pro-military' thriller — a tension the Guardian's text gestures at but doesn't foreground.
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