The Beast
Director Kevin Reynolds’ graphic, gritty desert combat movie is about a lost tank in the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Besides being 98% an unpleasant downer, it now reminds us that we got into the exact same fix just a decade after the Russkis threw in the towel. Cruel Russki soldiers commit atrocities against vengeful Moujahedin resistance, and there’s really nobody to root for. George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Steven Bauer and Stephen Baldwin endure a rough ordeal out in the dirt, hoping for the next war movie breakthrough hit.
The Beast
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] #143
1988 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 111 min. / Street Date July 27, 2022 / The Beast of War / Available from Imprint / 39.95
Starring: George Dzundza, Jason Patric, Steven Bauer, Stephen Baldwin, Don Harvey, Kabir Bedi, Erick Avari, Haim Gerafi, Shosh Marciano.
Cinematography: Douglas Milsome
Production Designer: Kuli Sander
Art Director: Richard James
Film Editor: Peter Boyle
Original Music: Mark Isham
Written by William Mastrosimone from his play
Produced by John Fiedler
Directed by Kevin Reynolds
War Movies. They interest us even when they’re fake or dated. Tanks in war movies have always had an appeal, but my father disabused me of their glamour at an early age. He said that being part of a tank crew was riskier than being an ordinary infantryman, because a tank is always a desirable target for everyone. Even a foot soldier could carry weapons able to ‘kill’ a tank. Some of our WW2 tanks were insufficiently armored, too, and were considered death traps.
There are a number of memorable movies set in a combat tank, the classic and still the best being Zoltan Korda’s Sahara with Humphrey Bogart. Byron Haskin made one called Armored Command that’s supposed to be good; and Eastwood’s comic romp Kelly’s Heroes gives Donald Sutherland a great opportunity to clown as a hippie tank commander. The fairly recent Fury with Brad Pitt successfully goes the grit, blood and guts route, generating excellent you-are-there thrills. It only flags when it indulges in ‘meaningful’ irony, and its unnecessarily apocalyptic ending sends audiences out with a bad attitude.
Back in 1998, the young director Kevin Reynolds tried a similar ploy with The Beast, stressing the ugly realities of hard combat in a guerilla war. But William Mastrosimone’s story hands director Reynolds some difficult problems to overcome. The action is set in Afghanistan in 1981, and our ‘hero’ is the driver of a Soviet tank. The ‘enemy’ are Moujahedin tribal fighters. But the Russians are the clear villains, so we’re rooting for the terrorized, desperate Afghan resistance. The script doesn’t want us really to root for anybody, but to simply accept the terrible situation of a wrong war in a bad place with hardened soldiers doing cruel things. When things get graphic, there’s not a lot of fun to be had.
A Russian tank called “The Beast” takes part in the obliteration of an Afghan village, slaughtering everyone. Tank commander Daskal (George Dzundza) ↓ is both pitiless and sadistic; rather than just shooting a captured village leader (Khan), he forces driver Konstantin (Jason Patric) to crush the man under his tank tread, in view of the man’s intended bride Sherina (Shosh Marciano). Daskal is near-psychotic in his cruelty. He runs his tank recklessly and bullies the men, including one who has distilled all their brake fluid into a drinkable alcoholic liquid. Daskal distrusts and mistreats the suspiciously intellectual Konstantin. Worst of all, he’s murderously prejudiced against the tank’s Afghan guide Samad (Erick Avari), a sincere fellow doing his best to aid his Russian ‘comrades.’
Taking a wrong turn into a dead-end valley, the tank becomes a target for the surviving villagers, among them Taj, the new leader, or Khan (Steven Bauer). Taj refuses help from the surviving women including the vengeful Sherina. He allies with some bandits from another tribe. They have motorcycles but are difficult to control. Taj has also secured a Soviet RPG weapon that can ‘kill’ the Russian tank . . . maybe.
The desert pursuit sees the tank crew falling apart over Daskal’s destructively harsh command. Their escape path to the Kandahar highway is blocked, forcing them to reverse direction and run the gauntlet of Afghan fighters once again. An easy exit is provided via a passing Soviet helicopter, but Daskal refuses to abandon the tank. The most original event is Konstantin’s shift of loyalty. When the young tank driver insists on reporting Daskal’s outright murder of one of his crew, Daskal leaves him to die. Konstantin is instead rescued by Taj’s motley fighters, and joins them in their effor to kill the Beast.
I would wager that only a small percentage of Americans in 1988 were informed about the USSR’s ongoing invasion in Afghanistan. Today, how many could even find the country on a map? I would think that today’s audience might be confused by the film’s political situation. As this is 1981, the Afghan resistance are sympathetic allies of the West. Timothy Dalton’s 007 thriller The Living Daylights depicted them as romantic horsemen, happily killing Russian oppressors.
Who in The Beast can we possibly root for now? We still don’t want to identify with the Soviets. They had total air superiority and lost; you’d think that our Neocons might have learned from their experience. Mike Nichols’ 2007 Tom Hanks movie Charlie Wilson’s War, about a congressman sneaking weapons to the Moujahedin to fight the Russians, seems to understand the insanity involved. Perhaps the real wisdom on the subject came in 1987’s The Princess Bride, with the rascal Vizzini’s pithy proverb “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”
But back to the tanks. What with movies like Oliver Stone’s Platoon glorifying gory, nihilistic combat, Kevin Reynolds goes for a gross-out effect right up front. After watching a man crushed under The Beast, only bloodthirsty viewers can find something to really hang onto in The Beast. George Dzundza’s commander Daskal is loathsome. The other crewmembers (one of them Stephen Baldwin) are willing to let Daskal murder his own crewmembers.
Our only choice is to shift our allegiance to the Afghan partisans and their new Russian comrade. Konstantin’s defection is ALSO uncomfortable, because the Soviets and Americans later became historically interchangeable in this equation. *1 I can’t imagine a mainstream Hollywood movie in which a heroic Vietnam War soldier rebels and changes sides to fight for the Viet Cong.
Mastrosimone ‘lost patrol’ narrative does come up with some ingenious twists. Daskal’s unreasonable effort to keep fighting in his damaged tank, doubling back on his path, follows the same symmetrical logic as the two-way truck chase in Mad Max Fury Road. One cruel irony pays off very strongly when our tank crew poisons a waterhole, only for the wretched act to boomerang on them. Classic John Ford westerns teach us that there’s nothing lower than poisoning a desert water hole, no matter whose side you’re fighting for. Another strange episode sees the crew betrayed by their own high-tech gadgetry. They expend much of their ammo firing blindly in the dark, reading electronic information that tells them they’re surrounded.
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Another hurdle that Kevin Reynolds’ movie must surmount is the language barrier. The Afghans speak in a foreign tongue and are subtitled, but the Russians speak in un-accented English. That wrinkle will further confuse viewers not sensitive to combat nationalities, etc.. Commercially there’s no way around this. Even if Reynolds found marquee-worthy actors that happened to be highly skilled in Russian (as was Natalie Wood, for instance), American audiences wouldn’t want to read subtitles. Jason Patric’s struggle to communicate with Khan Taj (“Tank! Pass! Rocket! KaBoom!”) still works well, but I’ll bet that some viewers ignored the film’s context, and assumed that The Beast is an American tank. They’re all talkin’ American, after all. *2
All the actors are good, with Jason Patric a standout. Did Patric not have the best agent? The only other movie I’ve seen that gives him a great role is the underseen, excellent neo-noir Jim Thompson thriller After Dark My Sweet. It really needs a quality widescreen Blu-ray release.
Reynolds’ direction has a nice kinetic quality — he keeps the excitement up while giving us a good feel for the desert topography. Particularly effective is when the tank is within sight of a Russian-controlled highway — on the far side of a gaping canyon. There are so many good angles of the tank in action that we feel sorry for the film crew taking all the punishment in the hot desert sun. The movie was filmed in a photogenic but very inhospitable-looking desert location in Israel.
Final thoughts? The Beast certainly delivers on its promise, and the ugly brutality that runs through the movie maybe delivers too much. Kevin Reynolds clearly doesn’t want us to accept Jason Patric’s main character as a standard hero. Although Konstantin wants to act in good conscience, he’s still a Russian soldier following ugly orders. I’m no more willing to absolve him than I would a Nazi stormtrooper with slightly elevated ethics. The story concludes by doling out semi-righteous payback, which is always a trap in a story about war, where anything resembling justice and fair retribution usually comes off as phony. Yet an even more nihilistic finale would be intolerable.
Viavision [Imprint]’s Region Free Blu-ray of The Beast is a very good HD encoding of Sony’s colorful and handsomely finished war thriller. The elements for this one appear to be in fine shape. Mark Isham’s music score incorporates local elements and vocals into conventional orchestration, to good effect.
Imprint has tapped David J. Morfogen for the audio commentary; his subdued talk is organized and informative. He includes some classic Russian movies in his list of historic tank combat pictures. Morfogen describes The Beast as ‘difficult’ for Western audiences. Reynolds wanted to be bold and different.
The video making-of documentary Nanawatai!: Inside the Beast is from Daniel Griffith. It has excellent content but is overlong at two full hours. Eager to explain every detail of the show are Kevin Reynolds, producer Dale Pollock, writer William Mastrosimone and actors Jason Patric, Steven Bauer and Don Harvey. Mastrosimone tells us that he actually went to Afghanistan and imbedded himself with Afghans fighting against the Russians. Israel was chosen for the location because they had the needed Russian tanks and helicopters; they also had Arab-Israeli actors experienced in films from the Cannon Group.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Beast
Region Free Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good +
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by David J. Morfogen
Nanawatai!: Inside the Beast new feature length documentary.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case in card sleeve
Reviewed: August 12, 2022
(6778beas)
*1 Don’t get bent out of shape — I’m not equating our war in Afghanistan with the Soviets’ blatant attempt at simple conquest.
*2 Honestly, you don’t know what audiences are going misconstrue. In Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey we’re told that Dr. Floyd is heading to the ‘Clavius Base Camp.’ Even though the Moon is mentioned in context elsewhere, and we see the spaceship heading directly to the Moon, some audience members reported on preview cards that they thought he was going to ‘Planet Clavius.’
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