Sometimes, you just know something is going to be good.
When I heard writer/director David Ayer and Brad Pitt were reteaming for a movie, I was excited. Fury was a war movie gem, so the duo coming back together was a fist bump in itself. When the first pictures for Heart of the Beast came out this week showing a bearded Brad Pitt with a buzz cut loving on a dog in the Alaskan wilderness following a harrowing plane crash through the trees, the sync was complete. This movie is going to be good.
And then the trailer was released. An emotion-driven adventure thriller about a man and his beast trying to survive in conditions that bet house money on the other outcome. Throw in unconventional elements like a dog helping a human brace for the impact of a crash and a human comforting a dog after a PTSD nightmare, and there was some authenticity blended in with the heart. Add some J.K. Simmons seasoning to the pot, and we are cooking up something special.
Leave it to Ayer to take a genre and make it his own. It’s something he’s done with Fury and End of Watch, the riveting buddy cop drama released in 2012. He’s a grittier Tony Scott, who happens to be one of my all-time favorite directors. What the late Scott did with his action adventures was add a thick layer of emotion to the core of any story, whether it be a runaway Bonnie and Clyde-type tale (True Romance) or a simple take on a train that can’t stop (Unstoppable) or an ex-special forces vet learning how to live again through the friendship of a young girl (Man on Fire).
Ayer did that with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena in End of Watch, and made his own band of brothers united by war in Fury. Here, with a bone-thin cast that includes just three human speaking parts according to IMDB, he focuses on the lovable and well known bond between an animal and his caretaker. Check out the preview below, and then scroll back up for my full take via a truckcast afterwards. Thank you.
