We featured the trailer for the new indie movie, Beast a few weeks ago. Now, it didn’t resonate with me, based on the trailer, but I like to be as open-minded as possible. Just the other night, the missus suggested role-play in the bedroom. She played a promising but naive actress in Hollywood, and I was Harvey Weinstein.
After that, I fancied watching a good fight, so I watched the Carano vs Rousey match. That was over in 15 seconds, so I then put on Beast.
The movie stars Russell Crowe, Mojean Aria, Daniel MacPherson, George Burgess, Nathan Phillips, Kelly Gale, Bren Foster, and Luke Hemsworth.
The Story
So far, so cliched:
MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in ONE Championship against its brutal champion Xavier Grau.
I’m not going to delve al that much into the story, but…
We open with Patton (MacPhearson) about to take on the fight of his life. His with his trainer, Sammy (Crowe), reciting a mantra:
If I can breathe, I can think, if I think, I can win.
This made me laugh, to be honest, but then, I’ve never been in a fight, I guess you must psych yourself up somehow. Anyway, the scene finishes with him entering the ring.
10 years later, we learn that something happened in the fight, and Patton ended up in jail, and is now working a crappy job as a fisherman. On the plus side, he has an insanely beautiful wife, Luciana (Gale), whom I will probably mention again, a few times.
Patton’s brother is also a fighter (Aria) and has a fight against an animal of a fighter, Grau (Foster), who does more damage than he should.
Instead of a rematch, Grau’s manager (Hemsworth) books a fight between Grau and Foster, with a big payday.
All of this is pretty much the first act, so there’s plenty more of the story to unfold, and honestly, it’s not bad.
The Cast
I know MacPhearson was in Neighbours, which I used to watch, many years ago, but I have no recollection of him. He’s the main focus and the one with the movie on his shoulders. Fortunately, he does a solid job, and I genuinely got invested in Patton’s story.
His wife, Gale, as I said, is stupidly hot and way out of his league. She’s taller than him as well, which takes you out of the story a bit. She was one of those women who, when she’s on screen, I wasn’t really listening to what she was saying. I’m easily distracted.
Crowe is Crowe. When the man wants to, he can really bring his A game. He does here, I mean, he’s not in it a lot, but when he’s on screen, he’s on screen. Not quite Gladiator, but a damn sight better than Robin Hood.
I don’t mean to sound mean, but both of the other Hemsworth brothers will always be the ‘brother of Thor’. Like if you ordered Chris Hemsworth from Temu.
Weirdly, the acting goes from the standard of The Room to much, much better. I’m guessing they didn’t have the budget for many takes, and had to go with a ‘that’ll do’ policy in places.
Fighting
Beast is about MMA, and I’m not a big fan of that kind of thing. Why people can’t just talk their differences out is beyond me? I do know a good fight when I see one, though. I was raised on early Jackie Chan.
Yes, I know Chan’s fights are more comical and played for laughs, but that doesn’t stop them from being interesting and entertaining to watch.
In Beast, the fighting choreography is very good, but that comes with a downside: the sound effects. I know what a punch sounds like, and they don’t sound like anything like the punches in Beast.
Whoever did the sound effects, it sounded like they had just discovered a new range of noises from a website. Then wanted to use every single one of them, all the time. Whoever it was, it wasn’t Ben Burtt.
This didn’t do the movie any justice, and since the fighting is a main part of the overall movie, it was a shame that it let it down.
Overall
Confession time, when I put Beast on, I planned to do some other work while watching it. Yes, I know it wouldn’t get my full attention, but I would get the gist of the movie. Not to brag, but I have three screens, and usually the left one has a movie on the go.
Having said that, I found myself ‘watching’ the movie and not doing any work. I took this as a good sign; it genuinely had me invested in the story and where it was going to go. I mean, the ending isn’t all that much of a surprise, but there are some nicely added details to the story which keeps you watching.
Since I was going into Beast without much enthusiasm, I was mildly impressed with how it all played out. It’s not going in my Best Movies of All Time list or anything, but it was a pretty good movie.
One other thing that annoyed me was the swearing. I’ve said before I’m not a big fan of pointless swearing in a movie, and this had loads of it. It seemed out of place, which is weird, as they delve into the underbelly of the fighting world, but it just annoyed me.
Overall, I’m giving Beast a solid 3.5 out of 5. It’s far from perfect, the acting is a little all over the shop, and the sound effects aren’t great. Some of the fighting is realistically brutal, and overall, the story was pretty decent. I said when we posted the trailer that Crowe worked on the screenplay, and it was good.
Beast is on digital download from the 1st of June.
Here’s another photo of Gale, just to finish on a positive note.
