Fantastic Fest XX Review: In BEAST OF WAR, …When All You Have Are Your Mates!
Beast Of War enjoyed its North American Premiere at the twentieth edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie opens in theaters and on Digital beginning October 10 from Well Go USA.
Kiah Roache-Turner, the man behind films like the propulsive Wyrmwood franchise and Sting is back to please more crowds this year. Thus, shark movies are on the menu this year with Beast Of War, or rather a band of Australian soldiers trapped on a makeshift raft at sea while surrounded and stalked by a big ass shark with an appetite for human flesh.
I nary cover shark movies. I think the last one I watched and reviewed was maybe six or seven years ago and felt annoyingly cliché and cheap, and it’s a lot of those films that dissuade me from these titles. Needless to say, I like when some directors can showcase a level of aptitude and ingenuity in their visions that gives their work a refreshing appeal, regardless if it’s a genre reinvention or just a good, captivating story.
Roache-Turner’s latest situates us in 1940 during World War II, and follows a squad of Australian soldiers in training before heading out to fight. Leo (Mark Coles Smith), Will (Joel Nankervis), and Des (Sam Delich) are just three among the men thrown into the proverbial shit as military brothers in training and each with different personalities and backgrounds.
To that end, Leo certainly gets the blunt end of that distinction as an aboriginal compared to his white counterparts, namely Des when it comes to his hateful dispositions apart from the discretion of others. This aspect of the film is just one in a culmination of events serving to attest thematic narratives (i.e. brotherhood and loyality) that naturally befit tales of people forced into desperate situations with no choice but to rely on their own to survive.
That boiling point explodes – albeit literally – when their ship is attacked by the Japanese, leaving the trio along with several others, including a few severely injured, stranded on one of the ship’s floating shards amidst heavy fog and fire, and volleys of aerial gunshots from the Japanese. To make matters worse, any effort they can make or ponder to rescue themselves and find a way back to land is met head on by a female shark, a Great White, that stalks them to almost no end.
Trapped with each other, very little food and limited in grenades and other utilities, it’s only a matter of time before the blood leaking off their makeshift raft, along with the sound echoing into the water from above, further agitates the shark at every turn. Leo, grief stricken by past tragedy and the only one with any real formative knowledge on aquatic life, has to choice cope with racism and the lingering trauma of loss, while squaring off in a battle of wits and will with one of nature’s most deadly predators.
Roache-Turner’s Beast Of War is a ferocious nailbiter of a shark flick. The cast bolsters with amazing command performances by, and including Coles, whose initial highlight moment with said shark is captured brilliantly on the film’s poster. Coles is frequented on screen with young co-star Aswan Reid in a series of flashbacks that setup the rest of the adventure for our protagonist, with one of the more pivotal supporting roles courtesy of Sam Parsonson who brings a touch of comedy to the afflicted role of a soldier severely injured in the blast that sunk their ship.
The only thing more disturbing than the shark is the pertubing imagery from the damage the shark leaves behind. I’m talking missing body parts and floating torso, as well as residual injuries like cracked skulls, golf ball-sized holes in faces, and a very deadly mishap couched in a hero moment when a sleeping soldier accidently unpins a grenade. There’s also the matter of what one does when thirsty and desperate but I’ll leave that to your imaginations until you see the film.
Invariably, Beast Of War isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a brutal, ballistic high seas survival thriller that pertinently underscores what sacrifice and strength are, and leaves the rest to pure, thrilling spectacle, with enough of the red stuff to make you second guess ever going swimming in the Timor Sea. Otherwise, make time for Beast Of War when it comes out.
