| Duration | 1h 41m |
| Ratings | UK: 12A, USA: PG-13, Spain: 12 |
| Source of story | An original screenplay |
| Director | David Ayer |
| Writers/Script | Cameron Alexander |
| Starring | Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Anna Lambe, |
| Ratings | IMDb: 7.2/10 by 22k people. Rotten Tomatoes: 7.0/10 by 180 reviewers. Review2view 6.5/10. |
Plot of Heart of the Beast: James Belmont, a former special forces soldier and his ‘combat dog’ Odin, both of whom suffer from PTSD due to battlefield firefights, go on a plane trip into the Alaska interior. During a flight Belmont suffers from a heart attack and his float plane plunges into a lake after Odin is swept off his seat into a thicket. Belmont awakes and breathes in an air pocket, then with Odin’s help makes it to the shore. He then manages to collect some equipment, but crucially leaves his rifle in the plane. He works out that he and Odin will have to walk 58 miles to civilisation and off they go. They have to face the worst that the Alaskan outback can throw at them. A bear, a fragile bridge over a chasm and a pack of wolves and despite their friendship and their combined capabilities they are in trouble.
Content: No sex or nudity. Belmont shares a couple of beers with another intrepid explorer, Watkins, who camps close to him for one night and then canoes away in the dawn. Belmont is constantly swallowing pills, one assumes to keep his heart working. Odin faces up to a bear which lumbers away rather than taking the dog on. The fragile bridge over the chasm results in Belmont falling into the raging torrent and breaking an arm. Even when he and the dog manage to support it in a sling it is obvious that things are not going well. Odin has a prosthetic leg as a result of combat, which is shown in flashback.
A View: This film has been well liked but will probably not be a big earner in part due to its enormous budget. But we are all suckers for a dog based story and Odin is a very good looking dog. There are no twists in the tale just a straightforward story of man and dog against nature at its most vicious. But it is Alaska. We might wonder what a man with heart trouble was doing flying a float plane into the unknown, but there is always something in every script that the writer has to paper over. So nothing to see here, just move on. I suppose really a film you could wait for to come out on TV.
Fun Fact: Odin played by Uber, had stunt doubles for the more energetic scenes. They were three of his offspring.
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