Review of Beasts of No Nation (2015) by Ian G — 16 May 2016

The benefactor of the success of the series True Detective, Cary Fukunaga released Beasts of No Nation through Netflix, a harrowing tale of Agu, a child in an unnamed African village who is caught in the centre of a civil war in his part of Africa, witnesses his whole family being murdered in front of him and by chance brought in by Idris Elba's Commadant, a freedom fighter fighting against one of the factions in said Civil War.

With a lot of his regime being made up of young boys and barely adults, the violence and destruction of innocense is cranked up to eleven and the cinemaotgraphy really captures the beauty and emptiness of the battlefield really well.

Idris should have received much more attention during award season outside of his sole SAG nomination, but as with a lot of films this days released strictly through platform marketing, the awards circuit leading to the Oscars still seem to be processing how to recognize non traditional release strategies that are mostly outside of the theatrical realm (although it did receive a very small window in NYC and LA for consideration).

A must watch for any social justice and war film buff since it echoes Hotel Rwanda, Platoon, and several other films for its topicality and any True Detective fan will be a huge fan of Cary's follow up here.

A must watch.