"It's the law of the jungle. It's the only law that matters."
"Multiple attacks without eating his prey. Lions don’t do that. At least no lion I've ever seen."
— Martin
Beast is a 2022 survival-thriller movie, directed by Baltasar Kormakur, ultimately based on a story by Jaime Priak Sullivan, produced by Will Packer and starring Idris Elba as Dr. Nate Samuels.
Nate is a widowed, divorced husband trying to reconnect with his daughters Meredith ("Mere" for short) and Norah after his wife died of cancer, taking them on a safari trip in South Africa with his longtime friend Martin Battles. Things go awry when a rogue lion starts stalking them and Nate has to do whatever he can to get his daughters out of harm's way.
Previews: Trailer
Not to be confused with the 1991 giant squid book and its 1996 film adaptation, or the 2017 psychological thriller.
Tropes:
- Aborted Arc: Near the beginning of the movie, Norah talks about how she read about anti-poachers, people who kill poachers. When a group of poachers try to help Nate and his family, they become hostile when they find out Nate is allied with Martin, claiming that Martin killed three poachers. Since Martin died before giving an explanation, this goes absolutely nowhere and anti-poachers aren't even mentioned for the remainder of the film.
- Accidental Hero:
- The rogue lion is this earlier in the film when a group of Evil Poachers come across Nate and his daughters stranded out in the wilderness and decide to execute them simply for being in the company of Martin, who they recognized as an anti-poacher. However, the rogue attacks before they can do anything, saving the trio.
- During Nate's final stand against the rogue lion, he is saved at the last moment by a nearby pair of male lions from another pride that Martin raised as cubs, who engage and kill the rogue to defend their territory and pride, which Nate was counting on.
- Alas, Poor Villain: If you interpret the lion as the villain, seeing how it does have a very sympathetic motive, and it ends up dying at the end.
- Apologetic Attacker: Martin says, "I'm sorry, boy" before attempting to blow up the lion along with himself.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- At times, the lion prustens: a sound that lions do not make. Prusten is unique to tigers and leopards/jaguars among the big cats. On top of that, it's a non-aggressive sound, specifically showing affection or friendliness, such as between mother and cubs. Tiger sounds are often dubbed over lions, as their roars are more impressive (even The Lion King did it.note ) So, some other tiger sounds were obviously mixed in.
- Also, the lion's first bite to his spine would have killed Nate, and punching a big cat engineered to take water buffalo kicks to the face would not work. But given the pains the movie went through to show accurate lion behavior otherwise, they're very forgivable details for Rule of Cool.note
- Asshole Victim: Any and all of the poachers who are killed by the lion. Not only are they poachers in the first place, they caused the events of the film by killing the rogue lion's pride in the opening and were about to kill Nate and his daughters for simply knowing Martin, who they recognize as an anti-poacher.
- The Atoner: Nate is estranged from his daughters because of his distant relationship with them and their ailing mother in her last year of life. He spends the rest of the movie trying to make amends with them for it.
- Blinded by Rage: After losing its pride to poachers, the rogue lion indiscriminately kills both the poachers and innocent people.
- Chekhov's Gun: Martin's lighter and tranquilizer rifle, and the discussion about "anti-poachers."
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- Martin introduces Nate and his daughters to a local pride of lions he raised, who are friendlier to humans than normal. He notes that the job of the male lions is to protect the pride from threats, which are usually other lions. Nate exploits this later on by leading the killer lion to the pride, prompting its two male lions to attack the intruding lion.
- Martin's friend Banji, who arrives at the end and saves Nate.
- Chekhov's Skill: Early on, it is mentioned that Nate is a doctor. He then spends much of the movie patching up people's injuries as best he can, and it's portrayed realistically in that he's simply working out of a first aid kit and delaying bad wounds from getting any worse while acknowledging they will need a hospital in order to heal properly.
- Covered in Scars: The lion gets gradually more wounded and scarred up as the movie progresses. By the ending, it's suffered many cuts and stab wounds, gunshots, and has been burned over much of its body.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The lion takes down pretty much any human it fights with ease and dominates its final showdown with Nate until the intervention of the two lions from Martin's pride.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: While he's clearly losing the whole time, Nate still manages to get in a few good stabs on the lion.
- Driven to Madness: It's implied that this is why the rogue lion is going around killing people—the film's opening has it being the Sole Survivor of its pride being massacred by Evil Poachers and, in turn, it slaughters an entire indigenous village and any other humans in the area without eating them. Martin even points out that the only thing that could have inflicted the wounds they find on people would be a lion but the whole situation flies in the face of normal lion behavior.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The poacher gang is made up of men and women, all armed and dangerous alike, without discrimination.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The rogue lion's pride getting killed at the beginning is what makes it go off in the first place.
- Evil Poacher: The secondary antagonists of the film are a group of poachers who are introduced having lured a pride of lions into a trap and then shooting them all with military-grade rifles, missing only one of them, which then kills at least two of them and goes on to kill any other human it finds, too.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Most of the movie takes place over the course of a single day, night and following morning.
- Fluffy Tamer: Martin raised the males of the local pride from cubs, and thus they're okay with playing a bit with him. There are limits though, and he has to back off when one snarls at him for getting too close to his mate.
- Foreshadowing: Martin explains the job of the male lions is to protect the pride from threats, which are usually other lions. Nate exploits this later on by leading the rogue to the pride, prompting its two male lions to attack the intruding lion, giving it a coup de grâce and putting it out of its maddened misery.
- Gaia's Vengeance: One could interpret the rogue lion’s unusually intelligent and persistent behavior as nature’s retaliation against mankind for continued infringement and destruction of the natural world.
- Heal It With Fire: After Martin is badly injured by the lion, Nate has him heat his knife with a lighter and use it to cauterize the wound. Fairly realistically, this is treated as a desperate attempt to avoid immediate death, and it is made clear he needs further treatment.
- Hero of Another Story: Martin. When asked about anti-poachers, he dodges the subject without confirming or denying. When the poachers catch up with them later in the movie, the leader freaks out, claiming Martin is notorious among the poachers and has personally killed three of his men.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Martin attempts one after the lion attacks again at night, managing to get the lion into the car that he and the other protagonists had been hiding it and making it fall off the ledge it was stuck on up to that point. The lion is injured but not badly while Martin is in even worse shape, and the car's gas tank was broken open in the fall. As the lion approaches to kill him, he takes out a lighter and ignites it, creating a fiery explosion that kills him and badly scorches the lion for the rest of the movie.
- Hope Spot: In the middle of the night, our stranded heroes see headlights approaching them and think for sure that they'll be saved. It turns out that they're poachers, but they're still willing to help for a price... until they see Martin. Then they're ready to kill our heroes until the killer lion attacks them all.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The rogue lion is the movie's main threat, but he is entirely a Non-Malicious Monster. The human poachers are instead not only actually vile, but they are responsible for all the deaths by hunting down the pride and driving the rogue lion to desperation in the first place.
- It Can Think: The killer lion mauls Martin but leaves him alive and lingers around the area, causing Martin to suspect that the lion is using him as bait. It was introduced to the concept of traps in the opening scene, when poachers lured its pride with a baited trap.
- It's Personal: For the rogue lion, having lost its whole pride to poachers and killing them and everything in its path as it's driven to madness.
- Karmic Death: Poachers being killed by a lion already qualifies as this, but special mention goes to one who gets caught in his own trap and then killed by the lion.
- King of Beasts: The main antagonist of the film is a rogue lion whose pride was killed by an Evil Poacher group in the opening sequence and now it kills any human it happens across.
- Made of Iron:
- The killer lion endures quite a few injuries and keeps on going, including falling off a cliff and getting blown up in a gasoline explosion. That said, it is clearly slowed down by its wounds.
- To a lesser extent, Martin. He survives getting bit, clawed, bruised, and the aforementioned fall off a cliff. But it's ultimately a Heroic Sacrifice that kills him.
- Even Nate might qualify for this how else would you call someone able to go mano a mano with a lion for minutes and survive, even getting some kicks in? Granted, he ends up in the hospital because of it, but it's still some impressive durability.
- Mercy Kill: The rogue lion being killed by the two lion brothers could count as one, to put him out of his misery as he was without his pride.
- Misplaced Retribution: The lion kills plenty of people besides the poachers in its quest for revenge. Justified in that, being an animal, it wouldn't really know the difference.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The rogue lion, for all of its brutality and not killing to eat, isn't actually evil, but has been driven to it by poachers killing off his pride. He is basically lashing out in anger, grief and fear, something the main characters are well aware of. Noticeably, for most of the movie they are just trying to escape, until the desperate situation makes clear it's either him or them.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The film is quite reliant on this, its main antagonist being an apex predator in its element and a good portion of the film takes place in pitch-black night where it's even harder to see it prowling silently through the bushes.
- Oh, Crap!: Martin, understandably, has this reaction to realizing that there's a rogue lion killing people.
- Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: Martin (who is an anti-poacher) is mentioned to have killed 3 of the poachers as explained by the leader.
- The Oner: The movie is comprised of a lot of these and uses it to very dramatic effect. One of the first shows a pair of poachers looking for the lion. One of them ducks to look at a paw print, and the camera follows; when they both get back up, the poacher’s friend is no longer behind him. From that point on through the rest of the film, as the camera goes through claustrophobic areas, it keeps the audience guessing if something significant will happen in the background when the camera pans back around.
- Papa Wolf: Nate Samuels. His entire goal in the movie after the lion shows up is to keep his daughters safe, to the point of luring the rogue lion away from them without any weapons so that it will hopefully forget about them after he's been killed by it. Luckily, another pride of lions is nearby and they save Nate from the rogue.
- Rasputinian Death: The rogue lion gets stabbed and slashed multiple times, shot, dumped off a cliff, badly burned by a gas explosion, and then finally killed when it's mauled to death by the brother lions that Martin raised. Justified, however, considering it's a freaking lion, a creature made to be able to take some heavy punishment.
- Shout-Out: One of Meredith's T-shirts has the Jurassic Park logo.
- Summon Bigger Fish: During the climax, Nate leads the rogue lion into the territory of another pride, raised in part by Martin. This pride's patriarchs turn up at the last minute and take out the intruder, saving Nate.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The lion will not stop hunting the Samuels family even though it doesn't want to eat them. Martin notes that this is extremely aberrant behavior for a lion.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In the final showdown with the lion, Nate is completely outmatched and would have been killed were it not for the intervention of Martin's pride, even though by this point it's badly wounded. This is in stark contrast to many of the early adventure movies and serials where heroes would often fight apex predators barehanded and win.
- Sympathetic Murderer: The reason the lion went rogue and started targeting humans in the first place was because poachers killed its pride in the beginning, causing it to set off indiscriminately killing.
- Tragic Villain: The rogue lion. The reason he is a Super-Persistent Predator towards humans is because the rest of his pride was slaughtered by Evil Poachers.
- Villainous Rescue: The rogue lion accidentally saves Nate, Mere, and Norah from the poachers just when they're about to kill them for being associated with the infamous anti-poacher Martin.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The poachers. When the lion attacks them, some are picked off on foot while some others get into their second truck and drive off. That truck and its occupants do not appear again in the film.
