the beast 2022 movie review

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The tone and style of the Indian anti-terrorist action flick “Beast” varies wildly throughout, sometimes even within the same scene. This takes some getting used to, especially in a “ Die Hard ”-style siege thriller that’s also sometimes a musical-comedy about a handsome bachelor spy who also loves children and excels at dismembering and/or murdering terrorists.

There’s nothing unusual about this Masala-style of Bollywood pop filmmaking, where filmmakers pander to the back row with a schizoid combination of Vaudevillian quips and pop culture references, overdetermined romantic interludes, and nationalistic saber-rattling. This sort of anti-terrorist movie also sits comfortably next to a couple of other COVID-delayed Indian productions, especially from Bollywood (Hindi language) like the blockbuster “Sooryavanshi” and the superhero thriller “Attack—Part 1.”

“Beast,” a Kollywood (Tamil) star vehicle for Vijay, still feels different, if only for how vigorously its creators try to sell their lead as a 21st century renaissance man. Vijay (“Master”) can dance a little, drive a car through various glass surfaces, and also behead a terrorist and then chuck that guy’s disembodied head out of a tall window. To say nothing of the scene where Vijay puts on a set of roller blades and literally skates circles around a group of mask-wearing extremists.

Vijay’s all-things-for-everyone self-image is celebrated throughout, as in the chorus of one anthemic song that hails the chipmunk-cheeked hero as “leaner, meaner, stronger.” A concluding number also describes Vijay as a “multifaced tiger with a multifaceted avatar.” At this point in the movie, Vijay’s flying himself back from Pakistan in a borrowed military jet plane, having just independently massacred a terrorist encampment.

In “Beast,” Vijay plays Veera, a superhumanly resourceful former member of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency. Veera retired from RAW eleven years before the movie’s present day: in an introductory flashback, Veera unintentionally blows up a little girl with a rocket launcher. Look, there’s no way to make this plot sound less crazed than it is, so let’s have a paragraph break.

Ok, so Veera’s now extra-sensitive about kids, which explains why he only springs back into action after he, now working for a failing security company, hears the cries of distressed children after the ISIS-style ISS terrorists take over Chennai’s East Coast Mall. These terrorists are ruthless, as we can tell by the way that one of them back-hands a lady and traumatizes a crying girl. (among other things) ISS’s terrorists are led by Saif (Ankur Ajit Vikal), who spends most of the movie wearing a Latex mask that weirdly resembles Anton LaVey, and his traitorous accomplice, the Indian government’s unnamed Home Minister (Shaji Chen), as we see in an early scene.

The cartoonishly ruthless nature of Saif’s guys is a given. Or maybe it’s just not emphasized as often as Veera’s equally brutal counter-measures. There’s also nothing apologetic or conflicted about the violence in the movie, which is effectively played for kicks in a handful of action-intensive set pieces. In an early scene, Veera also slices off one masked villain’s arm by the elbow joint. And he stabs two ISS terrorists to death in front of a captive audience of mall hostages. Between murders, Veera plays dead in order to fake out his second victim. “This is all normal,” he tells the hostages after he knifes the second guy in the head. The crowd seems to believe Veera since, in a later scene, a very nervous civilian (prolific Tamil comedian Yogi Babu , of course) is beaten up by ISS’ terrorists, but refuses to snitch on Veera.

Vijay is not as inspiring in “Beast” as he was as recently as last year’s “Master,” though neither movie is disappointing. “Beast” only feels relatively minor because it’s overstuffed with tangential showcases for comic side characters, like peevish negotiator Althaf (Hollywood director Selvaraghavan) or bumbling security company boss Dominic (VTV Ganesh). Some of these characters are barely in the movie, like Veera’s love interest Preethi ( Pooja Hegde ) and her persistent fiancé Ram (Sathish Krishnan).

In time, the movie’s routine narrative digressions also seem normal enough since, according to Yogi Babu’s sub-pot, it takes a village to support Chennai’s own John McClane. Luckily, Vijay makes up for lost time during the movie’s energetic action scenes, most of which are as polished and well-designed as they need to be. Vijay’s dancing hasn’t improved much, but he looks more comfortable making photo booth-worthy faces (mostly pouts and snarls) while firing a big gun in slow-motion.

The key to enjoying “Beast” is accepting its inelegant, inconsistent, and often insane terms and conditions. There’s so much of everything—and in such haphazard portions!—that the main thing holding this thing together often seems to be the movie’s centralized location and Vijay’s abundant and well-advertised swagger. He’s almost as good as he needs to be here, and it’s hard to stay mad at a movie where bloody violence and/or corny jokes frequently break out in a mall that advertises for Basics, Pantaloons, and the Fruit Shop on Greams Road. Watching the movie’s ensemble cast members valiantly struggle to make this ungainly action-comedy seem even sort of normal is usually more engaging than the movie’s big action scenes, too. By the time Vijay breaks out his in-line skates, everything that doesn’t quite work about “Beast” only enhances the movie’s genuinely endearing too-much-ness.

Now playing in theaters.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film Credits

Beast (2022)

Thalapathy Vijay as Veeraraghavan

Pooja Hegde

• Nelson Dilipkumar

Cinematographer

• Manoj Paramahamsa
• Anirudh Ravichander

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Beast review – Idris Elba takes on a lion in a ferociously fun thriller

The star anchors a surprisingly effective South Africa-set B-movie about a family who find themselves stalked by a particularly gnarly lion

T he dog days of summer have been rougher than ever in Hollywood this year, a damp end to a brighter than expected season. Front-loaded scheduling and a weaker than usual crop of August releases led to last weekend’s box office total being the lowest since May . But it’s a month that has often provided simple genre pleasures, especially on the heels of such overpriced indulgence (previous Augusts have given us Searching, Don’t Breathe and You’re Next), and after last week’s brutally effective survival thriller Fall (which also tanked, natch), this Friday’s similarly taut Beast works as another refreshing post-tentpole balm.

It’s got a costlier price tag than Fall ($36m v just $3m) and tracking suggests it might struggle to be profitable but if audiences do venture back out to the multiplex to see it, they’ll probably be as entertained as I, a no-frills B-movie pitched just right after so many A-movie counterparts got it so wrong. Like 2019’s slick summer surprise Crawl , it’s another to-the-point R-rated creature feature, light on plot and heavy on thrills, and this time it’s a lion doing the stalking and Idris Elba doing the trying not to die. Despite Elba’s prolific nature, it’s still rare for him to take the lead (he’s usually within an ensemble or sharing top billing) and Beast awards him ample screen-time to show us why he deserves more of it. Like in the underrated 2017 adventure The Mountain Between Us , he’s hugely believable in hyper-competent, high-stakes survival mode and here, he’s forced to figure a way out of a nightmarish trap when a South African vacation goes horribly wrong.

He’s taking daughters Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) and “Mer” (Iyana Halley) away to remember their late mother in her homeland, meeting up with an old friend, wildlife biologist Martin (Sharlto Copley). But after some mercifully brief exposition, things go even further south when the group comes into contact with a particularly aggrieved lion.

Beast isn’t going anywhere you can’t predict from the trailer or even a simple logline but it’s a straight line confidently drawn, directed with more flair that one often gets from such material. The Icelandic film-maker Baltasar Kormákur, no stranger to meat and potatoes action movies having made Contraband, 2 Guns and Adrift, is keen to do more than just point and shoot and together with the Oscar-winning cinematographer Philippe Rousselot (whose illustrious career includes films such as Dangerous Liaisons, Interview with the Vampire and Big Fish), they add surprising finesse to straightforward action sequences. There’s a string of intricate, if often cheated, “oners”, swirling tracking shots that take us in and around characters and locations in ways we don’t expect. It’s not exactly 1917 but it’s refreshing to see a piece of pulp such as this squeezed so carefully, involving us in the horror of it rather than leaving us at a distance.

At a tight 93 minutes, the pace barely has time to slacken and despite the familiar family soap setup, Ryan Engle’s efficiently spare and mostly grounded script doesn’t get bogged down by maudlin monologuing. It’s a machine and little more but Elba refuses to be just a cog within it, enthusiastically showing off his often underused movie star wattage, an actor who doesn’t need to rely on clumsy exposition to turn an action lead into a real person, the specificity of his never-not-on facial emotions doing that instead. Newcomers Halley and Jeffries are both impressive naturals and the script affords them more to do than just watch and scream, allowing them a central role in trying to figure out how to survive such chaos. And while the trailers suggested otherwise, the VFX lion is more convincing than so many other pricier effects I’ve seen lately helping to make those seat-edge standoffs just that little bit more suspenseful.

In the advertising for 2011’s Liam Neeson wilderness thriller The Grey, audiences were teased with the promise of the star fighting a wolf with his bare hands but the resulting film smartly denied us such goofiness, instead offering a stark and dour treatise on life and death. The final trailer for Beast reached similar virality after showing us the sight of Elba punching a lion (which in turn led to Slate asking zoologists: would that really work?) and while yes we do see it and yes it makes a bit more sense in a less serious-minded movie, it’s also a little too far, tainting an ending that feels anticlimactic and rushed. It’s a “moment” for sure and might be a rousing one for some, but it didn’t work for me, pushing the film into a realm of ultra-silliness that it had managed to avoid before that.

August might be a washout so far for the industry but Beast couldn’t be arriving at a more apt time, a thrilling, if throwaway, reminder of the fun to be had while watching a B-movie bringing its A-game.

Beast is out in US cinemas on 19 August and in the UK on 26 August

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‘Beast’ Review: An Angry Lion, but More Bore Than Roar

In this action dud, Idris Elba plays a grieving father who takes his kids on a family trip to South Africa, where they meet one very big C.G.I. animal.

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By Manohla Dargis

Sometime soon, “Beast” will hit the great streaming graveyard. Say a prayer and move on. By that point, you will have heard that it’s a dud. And while you may be tempted to watch it anyway — it does star Idris Elba — hoping that it’s tasty enough to fire up a bowl, don’t do it. It has a few scattered laughs, some apparently intentional. But this is thin, unimaginative hack work, and it lacks the deranged seriousness and commitment that distinguishes a pleasurable misfire from bland dreck like this. It is, I am sorry to say, no “ Gods of Egypt .”

There’s a story, sure. Elba plays Nate, a doctor who takes his daughters, Norah and Meredith (Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley), on one of those movieland journeys that turn into an extended, predictably dreary family therapy session. His estranged wife has recently died, and he and the girls are in mourning. So, they have flown to Mom’s home country, South Africa, where they stay with an old friend, Martin (Sharlto Copley). They’re there for restorative healing or something, though given all the dumb, dangerous choices Nate makes, it’s hard to think that his kids’ well-being is uppermost in his mind.

The movie is relatively short, as far as contemporary Hollywood action flicks go, and soon Nate and company are driving and then screaming and running through the scenery without cell service, being chased by a very big, very angry lion. The director Baltasar Kormakur keeps the camera moving and circling, but there’s nothing he can do to animate the story (the script is by Ryan Engle), particularly after the characters crash, becoming stranded in Martin’s truck. In between attacks and roars and screams, blood and feelings flow, and water runs low — the usual. Elba looks and sounds exceedingly bored, and you know how he feels.

One of the best things about contemporary digital wizardry is that wild animals no longer need to be subjected to human cruelty and nonsense in the name of cinema. There are real animals throughout “Beast,” but the lion that chases Nate et al. is obviously a computer creation. It has its reasons for attacking people, as our environmental catastrophe makes clear. Yet while the story repeatedly references poaching, it isn’t really interested in animals, and its truer interests are telegraphed by a character’s “Jurassic Park” T-shirt. I mean, it would be nice if animals were taking their revenge — this movie alone should enrage them.

Beast Rated R for gun violence. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic of The Times since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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Beast Reviews

Not every movie is going to change your life. Some of them just have movie stars fighting a creature they could not possibly fight in real life. But, in many of these cases, the movie is just fun.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 28, 2024

Though peopled with characters behaving irrationally, this Baltasar Kormákur directorial is enjoyable in an economic, bare-bones way.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

Beast is filled with appreciation for South Africa and plenty of fun action scenes, but its script stops it from reaching its true potential.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 18, 2023

Easiest way to put it… this is surprisingly good. For a 90 minute thriller you’ll find some wicked intense shots that give you a ton of anxiety! Idris Elba sells this entire concept in an exciting way & there’s even a bit of emotion to it all!

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

There's some fun to be had with the action sequences when the mayhem starts but there's quite a lot that is just plain silly.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 29, 2023

So, accepting the absence of thematic content and realistic portrayals of the natural world such films inevitably must be somewhat about themselves and how they were made. And Beast is made with a degree of elegance that’s wholly unexpected...

Full Review | Feb 7, 2023

Beast is one of those action films that you have to suspend believe & hold on for the ride with you friend or family member. Elba plays a father of two caught in the worst case scenario where a Lion is hunting them. Its as cringy as it is entertaining

Full Review | Original Score: D | Dec 26, 2022

...fares best in its compelling and periodically enthralling first half...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 16, 2022

…Beast is passable Saturday night fare, but despite a lot of hard work on the technical side, this lion doesn’t make much of a roar…

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 28, 2022

For much of its slim running time, Beast does what it’s supposed to do, right down to the buzzy moments of silliness where it bravely, too briefly heads over the top.

Full Review | Oct 29, 2022

It’s not the most robust cinematic meal, but as a style exercise, it earns a modest place among the rest of the pride.

Full Review | Oct 25, 2022

Everything in this action thriller seems real. So, of course, that makes the thrills extra chillier.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2022

The escalation of terror is genuinely exciting until the movie bogs down in CGI absurdity instead of reasonably credible survival.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Oct 18, 2022

Beast is not a great movie. Some may even say it’s terrible. Where the movie flounders is when director Baltasar Kormákur attempts to make it too much about a man reckoning the death of his wife via some very overwrought dream sequences.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2022

Even at just 93 minutes, “Beast” often feels padded and stretched. Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur and journeyman screenwriter Ryan Engle paint themselves into a narrative corner with no chance of logical or believable escape.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 4, 2022

It’s a hot mess and kind of basic. But it’s tons of fun, baby.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2022

Beast walks that fine line between solidly entertaining and solidly ignorable.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 23, 2022

"Beast" feels too haunting to have a ball with, but far too silly for its mawkish melodrama to truly resonate. 

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Sep 21, 2022

Beast far surpassed my expectations of a survival thriller, although I posit it's more of a creature feature horror with more realism. Even if you're not into scary movies, Beast is worth a watch as a master class in using reality to terrify.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 21, 2022

It doesn’t go anywhere that hasn’t been mapped out before, but pulp has rarely been done so thrillingly.

Full Review | Sep 15, 2022