Relax.
I mean it. You can relax. David Ayer’s “Heart of the Beast,” about a man and a dog surviving a plane crash and trudging sixty miles through the Alaskan wilderness, begins with the dog, Odin, finding his way back to civilization. The rest of the movie is a flashback. There’s danger in Ayer’s survival drama, and we won’t know until the end if Odin’s owner survives, but the filmmakers want you to know, right away, this dog lives. For some of us, that’s all we wanted to know in the first place.
“Heart of the Beast,” like “The Grey” and “The Edge” before it, treats Alaska like an obstacle course for old men. “The Grey” was about Liam Neeson fighting wolves, “The Edge” was about Anthony Hopkins fighting a bear, and “Heart of the Beast” is about Brad Pitt fighting wolves and a bear. Well, kind of. The dog does most of the work when the bear shows up and the wolves are subpar visual effects, but we get the gist of what David Ayer is going for.
Pitt plays James Belmont, an Army Special Forces veteran living a quiet life with his retired combat dog, who’s played by a very good boy named Uber. James and Odin both have traumatic nightmares and console each other when they wake. Odin has a prosthetic leg and metal teeth after going through hell on the battlefield. These two love each other in a pure, primal way, and when they have free time they fly a small plane into the Alaskan wilderness to go camping and play fetch.
After a brief interaction with a rugged retiree played by J.K. Simmons, who’s only in the movie so James has an excuse to tell his backstory, a storm hits and James and Odin try to fly home. That’s when James has an inconvenient heart attack — not that there’s any other kind — and crashes their plane into a lake. Our two heroes survive, but they’re about a week’s hike away from the nearest road and they’re almost out of provisions, and their luck gets worse from there.
David Ayer’s movies are famous for their rough edges, but when he’s in touch with his sensitive side he does his best work. “End of Watch” is a great cop movie because of the deep personal connection between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. Denzel Washington gives an iconically unhinged performance in “Training Day” but the film only works because Ethan Hawke’s decency counterbalances Washington’s energy. Ayer’s best movie, “Fury,” is ostensibly about World War II tank battles but it’s actually about wounded souls.
“Heart of the Beast” is a rough-hewn movie about men who love cuddles. There are scenes of warfare, because David Ayer is still David Ayer, but they’re relegated to brief, unpleasant dreams. The point of the story is not to kill, it’s to live, if only to keep caring for the people who care about you. Whether that person is a human or a dog is irrelevant. James and Odin are family and Ayer’s affection for them is contagious.
There are moments in “Heart of the Beast” where the connection between this dog and his favorite vet are soulful and true. There are other moments where “Heart of the Beast” is little more than an obstacle course. And although Pitt seems committed to giving his quiet character an inner life, Uber the dog isn’t quite as ambitious an actor. The film’s editor, Dody Dorn — emerging from a rough cinematic trek of her own, after splicing together the “Rebel Moon” movies and the embarrassing pro-AI dystopian nightmare that was “Mercy” — arguably deserves an acting credit. She found the shots where Uber looks like he’s completely in character and has a lot on his mind and skillfully bookends those images with Pitt’s most believable reactions, creating the illusion of a great performance.
Still, for every scene where Odin looks like a real character there’s another where it just looks happy to go on the world’s most epic walk. I don’t recommend watching “Heart of the Beast” with your dog, and not because it’s sad. It’s a little sad, I’ll grant you, but mostly I fear any dog who watches this scenic nature hike, with countless trees to sniff and pee on, will have unrealistic expectations the next time you pick up their leash. Once around the block isn’t going to cut it after this. If you and your pupper don’t spend at least five days crawling over moss-covered logs they might never forgive you.
“Heart of the Beast” is functional. It tells a clear story, it’s never boring for long and most of its emotional crescendoes resonate. You may tear up at the end, I know I sure did, but it doesn’t take much effort to pluck a heartstring. Just show us a dog who loves their human, and a human who loves their dog, and make them both sad. Tada, there go the waterworks. We watch dog movies to celebrate our profound personal relationship with our pets, and sometimes to watch those pets play basketball. “Heart of the Beast” delivers on those promises. Except for the basketball part.
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