Heart of the Beast

Can a German Shepherd out-act Brad Pitt? David Ayer’s survival thriller Heart of the Beast treats that as an open contest. Pitt plays James Belmont, a retired Special Forces veteran stranded in the Alaskan wild with Odin (Uber), his beloved combat dog. After their seaplane goes down, they have one job: cover 58 miles to a road before the land, the weather and their shared ghosts close in. The film’s real wager is simpler than the trek. Who owns the story: the global superstar, or the dog who never learned to miss a mark? Minutes into Heart of the Beast, Mauro Fiore’s camera and some of the year’s most exacting sound design by Aaron Glascock drop you into cold air and colder water. James suffers a mid-flight heart attack. The seaplane hits the lake. Odin is thrown into the trees. Clearly, this is not Marley & Me.