With a great setup and solid execution, Beast of War delivers a satisfying shark movie.
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Regular readers and listeners are probably aware of my wife's affection for shark movies and the animal attack genre. Really hard to explain why, but she digs it and whatever genre of movie my wife will watch, I'm down for. What's been fascinating for me, is seeing how this highly specialized subgenre has gone through phases or recurring ideas and themes. As an example, a lot of the most recent takes on the shark movie have highlighted interpersonal drama with two of our stranded survivors clearly having slept with each other and betrayed our movie's final girl. Or we're working through some kind of shared friction and trauma a la the 47 Meters Down movies and The Shallows. Which is why this Australian import, a nation that seems to do animal attack movies better anyways, is such a pleasant surprise. Because it decides to make its shark movie...a war movie.
The Setup
Following a group of Australian soldiers the movie follows a small platoon of men as they go through basic training and end up in a transport ship crossing the Timor Sea in WWII. A crossing that goes completely to hell when their ship is sunk and much of crew is badly wounded or dead, with a handful of survivors hanging onto a makeshift raft. But what was already a pitched fight for survival against time and the elements quickly turns into something more desperate as a hungry shark begins to circle and attack the men.
There's a lot of reasons I liked this movie, admittedly as a better than expected take on the genre more than anything else. Shark movies are somewhat notorious for failing to deliver the promised cheap thrills, so any movie that passes that extremely low bar, tends to stand out. But there's a lot of things that make this a decent thriller. Let's start with production.
Well-Hidden Rough Edges
I think it's fair to say that Beast of War was a low-budget production. There's only about two locations for the whole movie. The cast is fairly small. And despite being a shark movie, we're not going too effects heavy. Which can, and often does go horribly wrong.
As strange as this might sound, a movie with a limited budget actually needs a smarter filmmaker to make the concept work, especially if you're going for a survival drama movie versus something campy. If the shark looks like ass or it's really really obvious everyone is in a tank on a studio lot somewhere, your survival horror movie just became a comedy by accident.
So kudos to writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner who does everything he can to hide those rough edges with visual and creative choices and make this movie work.
For instance, most of the movie takes place on a raft as our small group of survivors attempt to stay alive long enough to be discovered. To hide rough edges, we're told that they're floating in a fog bank, which also makes their rescue less likely. But, that's not just used as a means to hide effects or the location. The limited visibility also becomes a running problem for these soldiers who keep trying to make out whether a plane overhead is friend or foe or see where the shark is.
I have a giant appreciation for novel ideas like this that benefit both the story and the production.
Likewise, Roache-Turner's action horror background with the Wyrmwood movies shows out here, thanks to a lot of solid action editing when fights chases and even some explosive payoffs occur.
Great Tone Management
Another issue you run into with animal attack movies is that they tend to be light on laughs. Which is an issue because as much as you want a movie like this to be tense, you need moments of levity to allow for pivots and prevent the movie from wallowing. Hence why we have the drinking scene with our captain, scientist and cop in Jaws where they make a bunch of jokes...and then we have the USS Indianapolis monologue to let reality sink in.
Beast of War operates very similarly using a brain damaged fellow soldier and jokes between the crew as means of cutting through the tension or as semi-funny punctuations to shark-related carnage.
From there we can offer up plenty of time for bonding and revealing each other's tragic back stories that explain why they are the way they are so any further deaths that happen mean something.
Solid Blend of Survival/War Movie Elements
Survival movies and war movies have a lot in common since they tend to feature people who are close that end up being picked up one by one via cruel fate or meaningful sacrifices for the sake of the group. And Roache-Turner blends all of these really well since this combat-like experience is a shared trauma that brings all of their foibles to the surface and forces them to work together or die.
I also like how the movie never fully leaves the war behind. Because even though their ship in sunk, that doesn't mean that the waters they're treading in are safe. It's an added complication that helps extended the run time.
Does the movie have any major faults?
Only one big one. Our main hero Leo, is played to near charismatic perfection by Mark Coles Smith, who is our ideal soldier. Selfless, chipper, strong and eager to help his mates. But he's also dealing with some baggage and trauma from his childhood.
What that trauma is, isn't clear. It definitely seems to be related to a tragic incident with his brother who may have drowned, but the movie frames this as some sort of thing Leo needs to either push past or face to get through this situation. But because it's never said out loud, and only abstracted, whereas other soldiers lay out their baggage in monologue form, it means the payoff for his emotional journey seemingly comes out of nowhere.
Still, in terms of shark movies, this is one of the best ones I've seen in some time.
The Verdict: Take A Bite Out of This One
With a great setup and solid execution, Beast of War delivers a satisfying shark movie. 7/10
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