‘Heart of the Beast’ Review: Brad Pitt and His Canine Co-Star Earn Your Tears in David Ayer’s Tense, Tender Survival Thriller

If you’ve seen the trailer for Brad Pitt’s new movie, you probably think that it’s a harrowing tale of survival in a dangerous wilderness.

Don’t be fooled. Heart of the Beast is actually a love story, and one of the most moving to come along in a long time. That it’s a love story between a man and his dog doesn’t at all detract from its emotional impact. Indeed, Pitt displays an engagement with his co-star that may be his most resonant yet. Although to be fair, that isn’t really saying much since two of his most notable cinematic romances are Meet Joe Black, in which he played Death, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in which his character spent most of the film trying to kill his wife.

The film, reuniting Pitt with his Fury director David Ayer, features the actor as James Belmont, retired after a 30-year stint with Special Forces that saw him facing combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he lives a quiet, solitary life. Well, not entirely solitary, since he shares it with Odon, his beloved German Shepherd combat dog, with whom he experienced many dangerous missions. Odon bears the physical and emotional scars of his years in combat, sporting titanium teeth and an artificial leg, and suffering from PTSD-induced nightmares.

The story begins with James flying his Cessna plane into the Alaskan wilderness (convincingly and gorgeously played by New Zealand) for a few days of camping and fly-fishing. The happy solitude is briefly interrupted by a stranger who happens by and spends the evening chatting away with the mostly silent James before taking off in a canoe early the next morning. He’s played by J.K. Simmons, making a strong impression in a brief amount of screen time and demonstrating yet again that he’s one of the most invaluable character actors in the business.

An impending storm forces James and Odon to leave early, leading to the first of several surprises in the screenplay by Cameron Alexander. The plane winds up crashing into the water, not because of the weather conditions but rather James suffering a heart attack that renders him unconscious. Both he and Odon, who was thrown from the plane before it went down, miraculously survive, and when we later see James scarfing down aspirin by the handful we realize that he was well aware of his heart condition.

Thus begins the survival part of the story, with James and Odon having to traverse 58 miles of wilderness to reach the nearest road. Along the way they encounter a variety of life-threatening situations, including a massive grizzly bear, a treacherous tree-bridge crossing over a gorge with rapids below, and an attack by a pack of CGI wolves. Both man and beast suffer an array of debilitating injuries along the way.

But what makes the film special are not the survival elements, as grippingly and (mostly) convincingly filmed as they are, but rather the relationship between James and the loyal Odon, both of them constantly risking their lives for the other. Pitt makes his character’s feelings for his dog touchingly palpable, most notably in a quiet scene in which he removes Odon’s artificial leg and gently massages his stump. And while Odon doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue (he does have a very expressive bark), the way he looks at his co-star is so adoring and non-judgmental you may find yourself reevaluating the relationships in your life.

Odon is mostly played by Uber (we can forgive the name), who would be the instant frontrunner for the PATSY Award if that worthy honor still existed. Credit must be given to his trainers, handlers, and Pitt himself, who reveals so much chemistry with his canine fellow actor that his previous female co-stars might be jealous. For certain scenes Uber is doubled by three other dogs, all of them his sons, which must have made for an especially harmonious set.

Heart of the Beast sometimes feel repetitive in its pile-up of perilous moments, but Ayer’s expert direction and the fast-paced 101-minute running time prevent monotony from sinking in. And if the film’s ending leaves you dry-eyed, you’re clearly not an animal lover and someone I have no desire to meet.