“Heart of the Beast,” a Brad Pitt survival movie featuring a dog, is set to hit theaters this Friday. Directed by David Ayer, the film skipped the festival circuit and instead held a low-key, Paramount-approved world premiere in Nashville last week.
With the review embargo now lifted, the reviews are pretty good, or at least much better than a David Ayer movie has any right to be. The film currently sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 70 on Metacritic. If those scores hold, they would easily be the best of Ayer's career. "End of Watch" (85% RT, 68 MC) and "Fury" (76% RT, 64 MC) are currently his best-reviewed movies.
Written by newcomer Cameron Alexander, "Heart of the Beast" follows a former Army Special Forces soldier (Pitt) and his retired combat dog as they fight for survival after a plane crash deep in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness. J.K. Simmons has a small supporting role.
Reviews overwhelmingly single out Uber, the German Shepherd who plays the combat dog Odin, and his bond with Pitt's James. Pitt is drawing strong notices, with some framing the film as proof of his lasting star power. Ayer is also getting good ink for his "confident" and "efficient" direction and the brisk 101-minute runtime, with more than a few critics calling it his best work since "Fury."
Despite a predictable, formulaic story, Ayer and Pitt seem to have delivered a sturdy, sincere, old-fashioned film.
Pitt and Ayer previously collaborated on 2014's "Fury," a WWII epic that grossed over $200 million worldwide. It's arguably the best film Ayer has made, and the true outlier in a filmography that includes "Harsh Times," "Street Kings," "End of Watch," "Sabotage," "Bright," "The Tax Collector," "The Beekeeper," and "A Working Man." Then there's "Suicide Squad," a film Ayer has since disowned, and for which he has campaigned passionately to release his own director's cut.
"Heart of the Beast" hits theaters September 25.
After this weekend, when “Artificial” and “Behemoth!” screen at NYFF, there won’t be many Oscar contenders left unseen. In fact, by my count, there are just two: ‘Cliff Booth,’ and “Dune: Part Three.”