It’s not entirely fair to say that David Ayer has been in director jail, because he’s worked pretty steadily since his debut in 2005 with Harsh Times. But after the critical failure of Suicide Squad (which has had plenty of documented issues during production), Bright on Netflix, and then The Tax Collector, Ayer has spent several years in the Jason Statham Content Mines with The Beekeeper and A Working Man, working (man) his way back to legitimacy. And now he’s back to his comfort zone: deadly serious military propaganda with a focus on the heart and perseverance of those who have served. Only this time, instead of a full crew in a tank like in Fury, Ayer has focused in on a man (played by Brad Pitt) and his dog as they attempt to survive a treacherous 58 mile hike in the woods after a plane crash.
There’s a level where you can feel Ayer almost saying “yes, I can still do this” after the bombast of Suicide Squad and Bright, or the ludicrous action of his Statham movies, stripped down to mostly shots of Pitt’s former Army Special Forces veteran James Belmont and a german shepard named Uber (playing a dog named Odin) who steals the show. The old maxim is never work with children or animals, but with a dog as talented as Uber – Ayer revels in long, languid shots of Uber’s watery, soulful eyes – you can understand why Pitt wanted to share the screen.
And while this is a survival movie, that feels stripped down in some ways, as well… Yes, there are bears and wolves and tumbles into rocky rivers. But most of the running time is merely spent on Belmont and Odin walking the woods as they attempt to make their way back to civilization. Other than the duo, only two other actors even appear: J.K. Simmons as a jovial retiree who shares a beer with Belmont, leaves him some words of wisdom, and does not hunt either of them as I suspected (it’s not that type of movie); and Anna Lambe as a random woman who encounters Odin on the road, which is not a spoiler as that’s the first scene of the movie before we jump back seven days to see how Odin got there.
How he got there is Belmont and Odin, both suffering from PTSD, fly a small plane up into the mountains to spend time camping, fishing, and reading (Belmont is reading, not Odin). In that, this movie oddly parallels last month’s Dog Stars, but without the post-apocalyptic setting… There’s not that much distance between Jacob Elordi piloting a plane through the mountains with his dog, and Brad Pitt piloting a plane through the mountains with his dog. Perhaps next month, Eric Bana can take a shot at this new “dogs in planes” genre or something?
Once a storm rolls in, though, Belmont hurriedly gets the two of them out of there, and if you suspect that the storm will bring down their plane, well, you’ll be wrong. And to explain how you’re wrong, I’m going to spoil the most unpurposefully ridiculous part of the movie. The reason it’s titled Heart of the Beast is yes, of course, because of Odin’s good and powerful spirit. But it’s also titled that because Pitt’s Belmont has a heart attack, crashes the plane, and then proceeds to seemingly have further massive heart attacks every 5-10 minutes throughout the rest of the length of the movie. It’s not meant to be funny, and really it’s not actually funny. But the duo are in dire enough circumstances that Pitt feigning a heart attack while chomping down on aspirin with regularity for an hour and a half starts to get a little bit insane by the third or fourth time – and it keeps going from there.
There’s also the survival aspect of the movie, which is somewhat hampered by the fact that they have to make this 58-mile hike with most of their stuff. Belmont manages to rescue two crates full of camping and survival equipment from the plane in a pretty excellently staged sequence, but then they have a tent, they’ve got dry clothes to change into, and when injuries happen, Belmont has everything from bandages to a splint. It’s not exactly making due with what’s available in the woods so much as they’re somewhat prepared for every circumstance… It’s mostly the constant heart attacks that are the real issue, as Belmont is clearly holding the otherwise fine Odin back from rescue.
But perhaps the worst choice Ayer makes is punctuating the well-made and staged survival movie with PTSD flashbacks to “the war.” Which war? Doesn’t matter, and they don’t really add anything to the narrative that we don’t already know, other than showing us war in hard. There’s some time spent on how Belmont saw the best and worst of people during his time with the Army, mostly during a final monologue that strains credulity; it’s not quite Steven Seagal’s final speech in On Deadly Ground, but it feels adjacent in terms of saying “hey do you get the message of my movie???”
And it’s unfortunate, too, because these distractions aside, it is engrossing to watch a man and his dog simply try to walk out of the woods. Pitt is an engaging actor (though accusations of violence by his ex, Angelina Jolie, may rightfully hamper your enjoyment watching him on screen), Uber hits his marks and barks on command (sorry, I’m not going to demand we give an Oscar to a dog or anything). And even the CGI creatures populating the woods look pretty good. It’s a well shot, well made movie that didn’t need that layer of “isn’t the army impressive” because the scenes are jarring and feel like they’re straight from a recruitment ad. Which is likely because they essentially are: the movie ends with a real fact about how important military dogs are, and it’s clear this is, once again, military propaganda from Ayer.
Whether that’s good, bad, or enough to get him out of, if not director jail, then director purgatory, I’ll leave up to you. As it is, Heart of the Beast has plenty of soul and a Very Good Boy at its center. Here’s hoping we get the dogs in planes hat trick some time in October.
Heart of the Beast hits theaters on September 25, 2026.
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