By Brad Pitt and director David Ayer team up once again in Heart of the Beast, more than a decade after first working together on Ayer’s brilliant World War II film Fury (2014).
While Pitt may be the name at the top of the marquee, he isn’t the true star of the film. That distinction belongs to Odin, the German Shepherd who accompanies Pitt’s James Belmont through a harrowing fight for survival.
Together, Pitt and Odin turn Heart of the Beast into something far more meaningful than a straightforward action thriller. Beneath the danger, violence and struggle to stay alive is a surprisingly tender story about loyalty, trust and unconditional devotion.
In fact, Heart of the Beast might just be the best love story Pitt has ever made.
That’s right. At its core, this survival tale about a soldier and his beloved combat dog is a love story and a damn good one.
Belmont is a former Army Special Forces soldier whose years of combat have left scars that aren’t always visible. Odin isn’t simply his dog or another tool of the trade. He’s Belmont’s partner, protector and, in many ways, the one constant in his life. Ayer understands that relationship and wisely gives it room to breathe.
That’s important because without the bond between Belmont and Odin, Heart of the Beast could have easily become another by-the-numbers survival thriller. We’ve seen stories about hardened soldiers stranded in unforgiving environments before. We’ve seen Pitt play tough, battle-tested men before. And Ayer certainly knows his way around violent men placed in impossible situations, just see both of his Jason Statham-led action flicks.
What makes this one different is the dog.
Odin gives Belmont something worth fighting for beyond his own survival. Their relationship also allows Pitt to show a softer side of a character who could otherwise be defined entirely by toughness. Some of the movie’s best moments aren’t the big action sequences, but the quiet ones between man and dog.
Pitt has always been an interesting movie star because he’s often at his best when he isn’t trying to remind audiences that he’s Brad Pitt. Here, he strips away much of the movie-star charm and settles comfortably into Belmont. There’s weariness behind the character’s eyes, and Pitt sells the idea that this is a man who has spent much of his life surviving one battle after another.
Ayer, meanwhile, is operating in familiar territory. The director has long been fascinated with brotherhood, loyalty and the bonds formed between people who depend on one another to survive. Fury explored those ideas inside a Sherman tank during World War II. Heart of the Beast takes that same fascination with loyalty and reduces it to its purest form: one man and one dog depending on each other.
And yes, the movie delivers when it comes to action.
Ayer doesn’t shy away from putting Belmont and Odin through hell. The wilderness becomes as dangerous as any human enemy, and the film continually finds ways to raise the stakes. There are moments when Heart of the Beast is brutal, tense and uncomfortable, particularly because once the audience becomes invested in Odin, every dangerous situation involving him carries considerably more weight.
Anyone who has ever loved a dog will understand immediately.
You don’t watch Odin like you would another supporting character. You worry about him. Every time he disappears from the frame, you wonder where he is. Every time danger approaches, you find yourself hoping Belmont can protect him, even though Odin is more than capable of protecting Belmont himself.
That emotional investment is the movie’s greatest weapon. The tears will flow.
There are portions of the film where the story follows a familiar survival-movie blueprint, and not every development is particularly surprising. But Ayer and Pitt overcome much of that familiarity by keeping the relationship between Belmont and Odin at the center of the film. You’re not necessarily watching to find out whether Belmont can defeat the next obstacle. You’re watching because you want these two to make it through together.
And Odin absolutely steals the movie.
Pitt may have an Oscar on his shelf, but he’s working with a scene partner who doesn’t need dialogue to get an audience emotionally invested. A look, a whimper or simply Odin staying by Belmont’s side can accomplish more than pages of exposition.
By the time Heart of the Beast reaches its final act, Ayer has earned that emotional investment. What begins as a rugged survival thriller gradually reveals itself to be something much more heartfelt.
The title may refer to the dangers waiting for Belmont in the wild, but the heart of this particular beast belongs to the relationship between a soldier and the dog who refuses to leave his side.
Brad Pitt has made romances. He’s made war movies. He’s made action films, dramas and blockbusters.
But he may have never had a better love story than the one he shares with Odin in Heart of the Beast.
Heart of the Beast gets an A-.