Nate wants to reconnect with his two daughters, and he’s got a great idea on how to do it. He’s going to take them to South Africa to see the village in which his recently deceased ex-wife (and his daughters’ mother) had lived before moving with him to America. It’ll bring comfort, closure and offer some familial bonding, he hopes.
So Nate reaches out to Martin, his friend who lives in the area and who had originally introduced him to his wife. Martin works as a sort of enforcer on the safari, helping villages thrive alongside the animal wildlife. And as part of his hospitality to Nate’s family, Martin’s offered to take them out to see the wildlife and experience some other nearby villages.
But when the group reaches one of the villages, they find everyone there has been ferociously mauled to death by a rogue lion—one that’s still roaming about nearby. But what’s even more disturbing is that the lion isn’t killing humans for food—it’s almost as if it’s hunting humans out of sheer vengeance.
Soon, the group’s car is totaled. Nate and his group are miles from the nearest village—and only moments away from the mouth of a very angry apex predator.
One of Nate’s daughters, Meredith, points out that her dad has never shown much interest in the things she and her sister care about. Meredith also holds a grudge against Nate because he promised his ex-wife that she’d survive and that he’d be there with her. Nate didn’t make good on either promise, especially as his wife become more and more sick. Meredith is initially pretty hard on her dad; but her alienation from him sets up the redemptive story of reconciliation between them that eventually follows.
Nate, for his part, blames himself just as sternly as Meredith does—if not more so. He laments to Martin that he failed in his role of protecting and comforting his family during that tragic time, saying that he was supposed to confront death at the door and tell it that it couldn’t have her.
“I wasn’t there, man,” he says. “I wasn’t there.”
So when the lion begins threating to kill him and his daughters, Nate does everything he can to make sure his daughters escape, even if it means putting himself in harm’s way. Nate’s friend Martin acts similarly.
A house has a Christian cross engraved into it. An injured man calls the lion a “devil.” Someone says that a knife needs to be “as hot as Hades” in order to cauterize a wound. Another man tells Nate that a fight with a lion is “not a fight he is designed to win.” Two characters talk about death as if it is a sentient being.
Nate has a couple of vaguely spiritual dream sequences.
None.
The plot revolves around a raging lion that wants to kill any humans it sees. As such, viewers should expect to see lots of violence as people are mauled to death. These scenes of the lion attacking can be brutally intense and definitely warrant the film’s R rating.
Nate often discovers the grisly aftermath of the lion’s violent work. A hut is full of bloodied and flea-covered corpses, for instances. A woman is found dead from a severe bite to her throat. A man succumbs to his wounds in Nate’s arms, his shirt soaked in blood. Other people are similarly found dead—and occasionally, we can see some of their internal organs. A man has his throat clawed out.
The lion wounds Nate and other characters, and we watch them deal with their bloody scratches. One character cauterizes a nasty wound on his thigh with a heated knife, while other victims yell in pain from having alcohol poured onto their wounds. Nate works to close someone’s leg wound, and we see the full extent of the damage.
A car crashes. Someone is said to have killed people. A man burns to death offscreen. People shoot and stab at the lion as it attacks them, and a couple of them land their strikes.
Poachers shoot and kill a pride of lions. A zebra carcass is torn open. A lioness has a blood-covered leg as a result of a poacher’s bullet. Another dead beast is seen with its throat bitten open. Nate throws a snake onto the attacking lion.
There are many jump scares in the film as the lion often appears out of nowhere. A tree is covered in the bones of various animals which someone has tied. Other animal skins hanging in a poacher’s lodge drip blood.
The s-word is used six times, and “h—” is heard four times. We also hear instances of “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “b–tard.” God’s name is misused about 10 times. It’s paired with “dang” once. Jesus’ name is misused three times.
Nate and Martin drink alcohol, and the two of them complain about headaches the next morning. Alcohol is used to disinfect wounds.
Poachers reportedly sell the teeth, claws and bones of lions on the black market.
Sometimes, we watch movies because they have great plots. Other times, we watch them because they have cool action scenes; whatever semblance of plot there is works more as filler just to get you to the next cool action scene.
Beast lands in the latter category.
Sure, we have a backstory in which Nate wants to repair his fractured relationship with his daughters by showing them where their deceased mother grew up. But that’s about a sixth of this film’s hour and a half runtime. The film’s true plot would be more accurately described this way: “Lion wants to kill man and his family; man and his family don’t want to be killed.”
And there’s a reason why this king of the jungle has his crown and why this movie has its R-rating: They’re both really good at killing. The movie’s many mauled human corpses make that truth abundantly clear. With so much blood staining the sweltering safari, you’ll start to wonder whether that cherry ICEE you bought at the concessions was a good idea after all.
There’s really not much else to say about the movie. After all, there’s only so far a lion attack-based plot can go. And there’s only so much to write about lion attacks.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
