7MMO
Moderator
The Beast will be released in theaters on October 9.
Samuel L. Jackson reunites with his The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea director Renny Harlin for The Beast, a fun, exciting throwback to the high-concept action-thrillers of yesteryear. The film’s premise is simple but never dull: The President of the United States (Jackson) finds himself trapped inside his own armored fortress of a limousine (The Beast of the title) after terrorists attack him and wipe out nearly his entire Secret Service detail.
POTUS must drive himself and his wounded Secret Service agent, Taft (Joel Kinnaman), through a war zone to reach the designated extraction point. Unfortunately, getting there is nearly impossible as some unidentified alliance of enemies has launched a simultaneous attack on the U.S. and multiple other nations, developments that have abruptly left the whole world in upheaval.
The enemy’s agenda is murky but their firepower and expertise has essentially crippled the entire U.S. national defense apparatus. Thankfully for POTUS, The Beast isn’t just an armored car; it also has plenty of hi-tech offensive weapons to fight back with. It’s basically The President’s Batmobile.
Relentlessly paced, The Beast plays out in real time. The movie literally starts with a bang – watch the opening three minutes here – and never lets up. Terms like “full throttle” and “high-octane” are bandied about in movie marketing all the time, but The Beast is one of the few movies that can sincerely sell itself that way.
The Beast is basically a two-hander on wheels, as Jackson and Kinnaman share the screen together almost the entire time. Taft is bleeding out in the backseat like Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs, but POTUS refuses to put himself first despite protocol. POTUS uses everything at his disposal inside The Beast to ward off the unending droves of attackers, while also trying to keep Taft awake and alive. Jackson and Kinnaman have good chemistry together but, as should be expected, no one can act Sam Jackson off the screen. Jackson holds the viewer’s attention the whole time.
Jackson’s POTUS is a Vietnam War veteran whose PTSD is retriggered by the attack and all the bloodshed that ensues. He’s wracked with survivor’s guilt from the war and from all the people who are dying for him now. He thought his inner demons were under control thanks to the help of his wife Rosa (voiced by Jackson’s real wife, actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson). (The First Lady, mind you, is also in peril on the other side of town.) All of which is to say the terrorists just pissed off the wrong President because this guy was trained to kill. Hail to the muthafuckin’ Chief!
The Beast’s race through the now war-ravaged streets of L.A. plays like that final convoy run in Black Hawk Down but within the lawlessness of The Purge or Grand Theft Auto. This is a behind enemy lines film but where the lines have been drawn on what had once been your own safe soil. Harlin and screenwriter Umair Aleem conjure old-school John Carpenter (Assault on Precinct 13) and Walter Hill (The Warriors) vibes, forging The Beast into a lean, mean B-movie that certainly deserves consideration the next time there are lists written about “one crazy night” movies or films that all take place within one location. (Even the score by Tuomas Kantelinen has a John Carpenter/Escape from New York synth sound to it.)
Harlin shot the limo scenes on an LED stage (similar to how Matt Reeves’ shot Robert Pattinson and Colin Farrell in the Batmobile vs. Penguin chase sequence from The Batman) so Jackson and Kinnaman could see all the mayhem rather than just imagine it. There are 360-degree shots inside The Beast, but it’s not overused and helps orient the viewer and understand the geography of the car and what it holds.
The Beast may not break any new ground in the action-thriller genre, but it does claw back those fundamental elements that led filmgoers to enjoy it to begin with.
Continue reading...
