PLOT: A retired special forces operative (Brad Pitt) and his beloved combat dog find themselves trapped in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash.
REVIEW: Every leading man has to do a movie with a canine co-star at some point in their career. Tom Hanks did it with Turner & Hooch, Eastwood had a dog in Sudden Impact (and many dogs in Tightrope), Channing Tatum co-directed Dog, and let’s not forget that it was a dog that drove Keanu Reeves to vengeance in John Wick. It’s a proud tradition going all the way back to John Wayne in Hondo. Nothing makes a man cry at the movies like stories about guys and their dogs — it’s just a fact. But we now may have the ultimate man/dog movie thanks to David Ayer and Brad Pitt in the ultimate “guy cry” movie, Heart of the Beast.
This is largely thanks to the magnificent dog actor Uber, who plays Odin, the battle-scarred combat dog and companion to Brad Pitt’s James. Both carry scars, internally and externally, with Odin having a titanium paw and teeth. Heart of the Beast is a simple story, elegantly told with restraint. Running only 100 minutes (with credits), Ayer’s survival story is lean and mean, never taking the focus from where it belongs, squarely on James and Odin. In fact, for nearly the entire film, they are the only two onscreen, save for a cameo early on by J.K. Simmons as a fisherman in the mountains who James and Odin spend an agreeable evening around the campfire with. Otherwise, it’s just these two.
Pitt delivers a grounded performance as James, who crashes his plane due to a heart attack and is badly diminished physically once he recovers. He and Odin have to rely on each other to survive, with the two of them far from civilization in the unforgiving wilderness, being stalked not only by bears and wolves but also by the elements and rough terrain. Of course, being a veteran, James is relatively well-equipped, but his heart issues and various injuries keep him from being the Superman you’d expect in a Pitt movie. He delivers a stirring performance, with his chemistry with Odin being believably affectionate. You buy him as a hardened soldier who can’t really relate to people anymore and only lets his guard down with his beloved dog (it’s actually Pitt’s second great movie with a dog — let’s not forget Brandy the Pit Bull in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
Of course, the real star of the movie is Odin, as played by Uber and a couple of stunt dogs. He’s a lovely dog who evokes a lot of emotion throughout and tugs at the heartstrings, but never in an overly sentimentalized way. Ayer is extremely proficient at genre cinema (he made probably the best-ever Jason Statham action flick, The Beekeeper), but he takes a step into more elegiac territory here, with the film being less explosive than his last movie with Pitt, Fury. It’s quiet and contemplative but also never boring, with lots of action and exceptionally beautiful scenery (New Zealand stands in for Alaska and is well shot by Mauro Fiore). Importantly, you invest in James and Odin’s survival.
While it has some gnarly injuries for our two heroes and a lot of “dog in jeopardy” moments, it’s still fairly wholesome and a good movie to take older kids to, as it has a good message about loyalty and how precious the love between a human and their animal can be. Speaking as a dog lover, it’s hard not to be moved by the love between them, and anyone who’s ever owned and loved an animal will find themselves choked up by the extremely affecting ending. Hopefully, folks get out to see it, as in an era where movies are increasingly bombastic, it’s nice to just see a pure man’s-best-friend story like this — one that could have been made (and loved) in any era.
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