‘The Beast’ Review: Samuel L. Jackson and Joel Kinnaman Take Renny Harlin’s Thriller for a Wild Ride
‘The Beast’ Review: Samuel L. Jackson and Joel Kinnaman Take Renny Harlin’s Presidential Thriller for a Wild Ride
Renny Harlin has spent decades making the kind of action movies that understand sometimes the best approach is simply to get moving and refuse to slow down. With The Beast, the director puts Samuel L. Jackson and Joel Kinnaman inside the presidential limousine, surrounds them with an escalating attack and spends most of the movie finding increasingly chaotic ways to keep them moving.
Written by Umair Aleem, The Beast arrives in theaters Oct. 9 with enough recognizable talent that its limited theatrical rollout is somewhat surprising. Harlin remains a familiar name in action filmmaking, while Jackson and Kinnaman give the movie a pair of leads more than capable of carrying a mainstream action thriller.
More importantly, the movie itself doesn’t feel like something that needs to be hidden away.
Kinnaman plays a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the president, played by Jackson, during a major attack in Spain. The movie wastes little time getting into the action, throwing its characters into danger almost immediately.
At the center of everything is the Beast, the heavily fortified presidential limousine designed to withstand bullets, explosives and other threats while providing its occupants with a collection of defensive capabilities.
And make no mistake, the car is one of the stars of the movie.
Harlin understands the appeal of putting two recognizable actors inside what is essentially a rolling fortress and then continually finding new ways to attack it. The Beast becomes both transportation and battlefield, giving the movie a simple central mechanism around which it can build an almost constant carousel of action.
The situation also creates an entertaining reversal between its two leads. The Secret Service agent is supposed to be protecting the president, but circumstances force Jackson’s commander in chief to take a much more active role in keeping them alive.
At the same time, the president is determined to get back to the first lady, adding another objective while the larger attack continues unfolding around them.
As the story progresses, the immediate survival thriller begins opening into questions of betrayal, loyalty and who can actually be trusted. There is also more beneath the surface of Jackson’s president than his political position suggests.
His military past becomes increasingly important, revealing someone carrying ghosts from an earlier part of his life and reminding everyone that the man sitting in the back of the presidential limousine is capable of becoming considerably more dangerous when necessary.
That gives Jackson exactly the kind of material you want him to have in a movie like this.
There are plenty of classic Samuel L. Jackson moments, and his chemistry with Kinnaman gives the movie another source of energy between the larger action sequences. Their back-and-forth works because neither performer needs the material to be more complicated than it is.
Harlin largely takes the same approach.
The Beast knows its biggest strengths are the car, its stars and the revolving series of threats surrounding them. When the movie slows down and moves into its quieter story material, it isn’t always quite as engaging. The underlying conspiracy and character drama never become as compelling as watching these two men attempt to survive whatever is coming at them next.
Fortunately, the film doesn’t stay quiet for very long.
Harlin keeps pushing forward, maintaining the momentum through most of the runtime and carrying that energy into the final stretch. There is an old-school quality to the entire production, the kind of straightforward action thriller built around movie stars, increasingly ridiculous circumstances and the promise that something else is probably going to explode before the credits roll.
Some viewers will undoubtedly find parts of The Beast goofy. Others may feel like they’ve seen variations of this movie plenty of times before.
They’re probably not wrong.
But familiarity doesn’t automatically make something ineffective.
There is a little of that Snakes on a Plane energy here, particularly in the way Jackson can elevate an outrageous genre premise simply by committing completely to it. The movie isn’t asking to reinvent the presidential action thriller. It wants to put Samuel L. Jackson and Joel Kinnaman inside an armored limousine, unleash hell around them and make sure the audience has a good time watching them try to survive.
For me, that simplicity is part of the appeal.
I actually considered screening The Beast for some of my press friends while we were covering Fantastic Fest, despite the film not being part of the festival. Having now seen it, I think that room would have had a great time with it.
Sometimes an action movie simply needs to be entertaining.
The Beast delivers the action, keeps its foot on the gas and gives Jackson plenty of opportunities to bring the personality audiences expect from him. It may be familiar territory, but I would have a difficult time watching someone sit through this movie and come away saying they weren’t at least entertained by the ride.
4 out of 5
The Beast opens in theaters Oct. 9.
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