Heart of the Beast is dropping this September
As the reigning champion of big-screen-worthy semi-disposable action-thriller fluff, Jason Statham has made a name for himself as the most reliable star in Hollywood (and the most bankable name on Prime Video). I would not blame anyone for chasing that glory — in fact, I would highly encourage it. Gerard Buter can’t do this alone, folks. Thankfully, Brad Pitt has stepped up to fill the calendar with even more hyper-masculine-to-the-point-of-parody Dad Action. The movie doesn’t have an occupation for a title, but it does invoke “beast” which is a good sign.
Heart of the Beast stars Pitt as James Belmont, a Special Forces officer (shocking!) whose plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness, leaving him stranded with only his highly trained combat dog, Odin, for company. What follows is a survival thriller built around man-versus-nature stakes, with Belmont battling brutal weather, isolation, and whatever other hazards Alaska can throw at him.
Directed by The Beekeeper and End of Watch filmmaker David Ayer, Heart of the Beast leans into the bond between soldier and dog as its emotional core, pairing Pitt with a loyal four-legged co-star for a wilderness ordeal that could easily lean more into prestige drama than knockout thrillers. But two things are true: Ayer and Pitt previously made the pulpy action-drama Fury together back in 2014 and the first images from the film really make me think there’s more action in this movie than the logline would hvae us believe.
Heart of the Beast sounds mostly like Brad Pitt’s The Grey, but I can only imagine (hope?) a bunch of faceless goons also wind up in the forest for James Belmont to take out with the help of his pup.
Will Pitt find that perfect alchemy of down-to-earth and superhuman that allows Statham to transcend with each episodic installment? Heart of the Beast is a much better test than last year’s F1 or his Oscar follow-up The Adventures of Cliff Booth. We’ll know soon when Pitt’s movie arrives Sept. 25. But he has competition: Statham’s Mutiny arrives a month earlier, on Aug. 21.