After the passing of his wife, Dr. Nate Samuel (Idris Elba) takes his two daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) on a safari with Martin (Sharlto Copley), a family friend and research partner of their mother. Things take a turn for the worse when the expedition comes across a small village whose residents have all been killed. From the looks of the wounds, however, these killings were the work of a massive lion that is seeking to regain its territory and will stop at nothing to keep the humans at bay. 

Beast is a survival thriller directed by Baltasar Kormákur from a script by Ryan Engle and released by Universal Pictures. At a taught and tense 93 minutes, the film offers quite a few scares while still weaving an exciting adventure narrative. Despite its simple conceit, Beast finds a good balance of both plot and character so that the cast is able to shape their performance and find growth throughout the narrative. The stalking lion is the clear and present danger, but the film does not rely solely on the titular beast to drive itself forward. 

Leading the film, Elba takes some time to find his groove with the character. We learn pretty early on that he has been out of his daughters’ lives for some time and so some of the bumbling could be Nate trying to regain some common ground between the girls, but it does not always translate well onto the screen. It finds Elba struggling to command the scenes in the first act, but as the film careens into the second and third acts, Elba is able to flex as an action star and regains the charisma that makes him such an exciting performer to watch. 

The middle act of the film is where Beast begins to really prove itself. Baltasar Breki serves as the director of photography, and he utilizes many long tracking shots for much of the action which adds a lot of visual excitement and unease to the film. This approach finds us oscillating between the point of view of the character to a third person, over-the-shoulder shots so the sense of danger is always present. While the film also utilizes a few jump scares throughout its run time, they are regulated to more of the straight action sequences so that much of the dread is created through these tracking shots.  

When the film does feature its action set pieces, Elba appears in his element. Putting aside the fact that both he and the girls have an unbelievable amount of resilience after being struck by the massive lion, the fight choreography is well shot and easy to track. Much of the film takes place at night so the rendering of the lion is concealed and although it is not enough to totally mask the sometimes rigid movements – more so in the mane of the lion than in his gait – he still always feels like a part of the environment. 

Narratively, the film is not seeking to be just empty thrills as it delves into some back story in the strain this family endured throughout the matriarch’s illness and ultimate death. The film posits that Martin may have been more romantically interested in Nate’s wife, at least before he introduced the two, and this handling of the backstory creates an odd bit of unexplored tension between the two men. Nate, for one, either does not notice these indications or does not care. Possibly, this dynamic was not intended by the script, but the way Copley delivers some of his line readings makes it seem there was more to their relationship than he is letting on to. The rest of the character growth follows a pretty standard chart of an estranged father reuniting with their children and the trio all have moments where they get to provide assistance to one another, and also rely on each other for their own needs. Engle’s script manages the small ensemble well, and like any good thriller weaves in some well-placed payoffs. The way he repurposes the family’s dwindling resources is inventive and enjoyable as most of the introductions to these tools are worked rather seamlessly into the narrative so when they come back into play, we are not always expecting or waiting for it. The script does feel a need to recap itself which creates some clunky dialogue that, given the shot setups when this happens, was most likely added in after the shoot. It is unnecessary and while the script is smartly constructed, it is not so heady that it needs to double back and explain itself. 

Beast, even taking the context of its release during the middle of an August box office drought, is an entertaining film that has a clear idea of what it wants to accomplish and does just that. Equipped with a rather efficient script, the filmmakers do not spend too much time setting up overly elaborate schemes and scenarios just to pad the runtime. It is a simple premise, executed with great competency and that rare sense of self-awareness helps to guide the filmmaking decisions at every level. Beast, audiences will find, is not just a vehicle for cinemas to move popcorn while we mooch off their air conditioning, but is a thrilling story with action, scares, and a good bit of heart, set in the picturesque, sun-baked African outback and provides all the excitement one could want from a Man vs. Animal narrative. It does not have the same resonance as Jaws (1975) – and to be fair, few films do – but it is a solid and enjoyable effort of all involved and, by falling back and relying on the core components of the genre, it is also a breath of fresh air from the stagnancy of franchise entertainment.