Review of Beasts of No Nation (2015) by Rmurray847 — 10 Aug 2023

In many ways, one of the scariest things about BEASTS OF NO NATION is how alien it all seems. Here in the US, as "grim" as things seem sometimes these days, we don't have factions of the military and para-military organizations committing mass murder and atrocities. We don't force 12 year olds to become mindless killers by the thousands. The events in BEASTS are deeply disturbing, but they feel almost like we're watching some kind of strange sci-fi movie or maybe a post-apocalyptic film. But the fact is, while the country in this film is not named and the events are "fiction", we're seeing a part of the world that's all too real and all too current. How can something like this be happening? Aren't we humans with basic human feelings?

We meet the young boy, Agu (Abraham Attah, who is asked to give quite a performance) playing happily with friends in his village in Africa. He's about 12 years old, and he is certainly a mischief-maker. He's not a "good little boy" but he's scrappy and smart and not afraid to bend the rules if it'll help him get his hands on some candy or other special treat. He's got a big, noisy family that bug the heck out of him (like the family of any 12 year old does), but they all clearly love each other and he loves them. The village is poor, but is under the protection of Nigerian peace-keepers. The civil war ravaging the country feels distant. Life is pretty good, all things considered.

One day, that all goes horribly wrong, and Agu witnesses one personal loss after another. Suddenly, his refuge is gone and he finds himself in the jungle, alone and with literally nothing but a few tattered clothes on his back. When he runs into a band of guerilla soldiers, led by The Commandant (a powerful Idris Elba), he is just relieved to be taken into the group rather than shot on the spot. He's surrounded now by boys his age, but these aren't like the boys of his village that he ran around with (and was a bit of a de facto leader of). These are child soldiers, carrying and using guns.

The Commandant is a charismatic leader, and understands quite well how to manipulate these vulnerable boys. Agu soon is carrying a gun of his own, and in one terrible scene, he is introduced to killing. We see his personality stripped away, to be replaced by a mostly unthinking, rifle-toting automaton. But writer/director Cary Fukunaga (NO TIME TO DIE) wisely keeps us on Agu's side by showing us Agu's "conversations" with God (the last words his mother said to him were "remember to pray every day"...and he does), and we hear that Agu is still capable of being tormented by what he's doing. This 12-year-old experiences an existential crisis.

Much of the movie is episodic rather than plot driven, and these are really the best moments. As the film enters its third act, focus shifts more to the politics behind all of this mindless killing, and attention moves more to The Commandant. The film becomes plot driven, and while Elba is never less than commanding and riveting...the film still becomes much less interesting. We stop seeing events through the eyes of a boy, and start seeing it through the cynical eyes of the filmmaker. The result is a film that's been primed for an emotionally crushing climax, but instead sputters out with a "why is the world this way and will it ever change" nihilistic and almost clinical outlook. While valid, the ending fails the viewer on an emotional level. And while I'm not sure Fukunaga intended this film to be any kind of call to action, by deflating our emotional involvement, any feeling the viewer might have had about "how can I help" is gone. As I write this, just two days after seeing the film, I can't quite remember what the final scene was. For such a powerful topic, portrayed so well for 75% of its running-time...it should have been unforgettable.

I viewed the Criterion version. It is excellent as always (and use the English subtitles...the film is mostly in English, but the accents are SOOOO thick, you cannot understand great chunks of what is said without help of the titles). The one hour documentary "making of" feature is well done, and worth investing your time in.