Heart of the Beast is a Brad Pitt survival thriller set in Alaska

📽🐶 Brad Pitt and a dog? Sign us up. In Heart of the Beast, director David Ayer (Fury and Suicide Squad) delivers a man-versus-nature story, with nothing but memories and a loyal dog for company. It wears the thriller and action coating familiar from survival films but carries underneath something more affecting: a genuine love letter to dogs.

The plot: James Belmont (Brad Pitt) is a former Special Forces soldier flying over the Alaskan wilderness with his retired police dog Odin when he suffers a mid-flight heart attack, sending the plane down into the forest. What follows is a week-long survival journey as the two try to make it back to civilization — fighting cold, hunger, and their injuries every step of the way.

What we liked: Pitt delivers a clean, unforced performance — natural and honest, communicating everything without saying much. That’s worth noting: this kind of film can go flat quickly in the hands of a less experienced actor who can’t carry emotion through physicality alone. What genuinely stole the film, though, was the German Shepherd — four dogs were used across the shoot, and whichever one was on screen at any given moment had the audience. The cinematography also deserves credit: Alaska does a lot of the work, turning almost every outdoor frame into something worth looking at.

What we didn’t: Our main criticism is the opening, which tells you where the story ends before it begins — something we’d have preferred to discover along the way. The script has also been called thin by a number of critics, and we largely agree: most of what happens is predictable from the moment the plane goes down. But the emotional honesty of the central relationship carries more weight than the plot or the dialogue, which keeps the film from feeling hollow.

The verdict: Heart of the Beast gets the job done for an evening out without excessive expectations. It won’t compete with Hollywood’s bigger releases this year, but it delivers exactly what it promises: a bold survival thriller with a furry friend at its heart.

WHERE TO WATCH IT- Catch the movie at VOX Cinemas in City Centre Almaza, Mall of Egypt, and Alexandria; City Stars Cinema; Scene Cinemas at Cairo Festival City and District 5; Cima Arkan; and Point 90 Cinema. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:25)