Beasts of No Nation

So I wanted to watch this movie a long time ago. When I first saw this movie come out on Netflix, I was interested on so many levels. I love stories set in African countries and I find the continent interesting. Idris Elba is such a power house of an actor. There were just so many things that got me excited about this movie.

One of the reasons I put off a lot of these movies is because I feel like I want to sit down and actually analyzing them instead of watching them while doing something else like being on my computer. Well Beasts of No Nation is even more difficult to do that because a lot of the movie is in subtitles.

However, watching it now, I really regret waiting so long to watch it.

Beasts of No Nation follows the story of a young boy by the name of Agu (played by Abraham Attah). Agu says it in a monologue in the beginning, he's a good boy from a good family in a good town. He's lucky because he lives in a buffer zone in an unspecified West African country during a Civil War and an agreement says that neither the rebels nor the government can enter this area.

That soon changes though when word of clashes between rebels and the army are coming closer to his town. His mother and younger siblings are sent away and Agu was supposed to be going with them but he has to stay with his father and brother. That goes badly when the government comes and just massacres everyone in the town including his family. Agu escapes and finds his way into a rebel force called the NDF. And this group is led by a warlord by a vicious but charismatic Commandant (played by Idris Elba).

For a lot of people, this was the reason to see Beasts of No Nation and I totally agree. I think that there is a lot of great things about this movie, but one of the best things is definitely Idris Elba playing the Commandant. This is a tremendous role and it's incredibly dark, it's incredibly powerful.

I've always known that Idris Elba was a good actor but after seeing this he goes up a couple pegs as just a power house actor all around.

The entire movie is Agu living the life of a child soldier in this rebel force. It hits all the areas of child soldiers and they really don't pull any punches. When he first comes into the group, they play it off like he's joining some kind of Lord of the Flies organization, that there are very few rules, he can do whatever he wants, and the Commandant's group is a group fighting for good.

But ever so slowly, all the horrors of being a child soldier come up. The bloodshed, the drugs, the abuse. All of it inflicted on this kid who at the beginning of the movie is just this really sweet kid with not a care in the world. It's heart breaking, especially when you really think about this film because you can get swept up in the actions of the war he's in. But when you stop and think about where he came from and where he ends up, it's really sad.

The first time I tried to watch this film, I thought that the beginning was pretty slow and I actually fell asleep. But on my second attempt, I realized how important the first 10 minutes of the film are because they set up Agu as a kid before all these horrible things happen to him. Then you just watch him slip slowly into this primal state and it becomes very sad very quickly.

This is a powerful movie and not for the faint of heart. Like I said, they really don't pull any punches.

This was the first movie that Abraham Attah has done and I have to give the kid credit, this is a very heavy role and had to have been tough to film. Being a child soldier, having to portray the pain this kid holds from the things he has done is a tall order and I thought Attah did a really good job in the film. Elba and him work together so well and they really make this emotional connection that is both kind of touching and incredibly sad, especially considering that it's an incredibly abusive relationship.

Now this movie is not perfect. There are some pacing issues and it does feel like a long movie. While I totally understand the first 10 to 20 minutes of the film are necessary to establish backstory and show where this kid comes from, they do kind of drag at times.

I mean a lot of the movie is them walking through the jungle and it can drag a little bit when there isn't action. That being said, when there is action, it is raw action and it is really well done.

Also I think language was a little bit of a barrier for this film. Now when I first attempted to watch this movie, I thought that the entire movie was going to be in subtitles, but the reality is, they speak English through a lot of it. But it's also kind of obvious that English is not the first language for a lot of these actors and because of that, it's difficult to get the line across and still portray the emotion needed to get the scene understood by the audience. They do a good job in a lot of moments but then there are times where it doesn't work as much.

Something that I remember being a point of contention last year was people making mention that this movie should have been considered for Best Picture or for Oscar nominations but wasn't because it came out on a streaming platform like Netflix. It did have a short theatrical release so it could be considered.

This is always something difficult for me, even looking at things in retrospect. I never am able, or am

interested in seeing all the Oscar contenders for the particular year and it takes me a while to even get through all the films years later. 2014 is a good example because I've seen a lot of the films that came out that year and were nominated but at the same time I still haven't seen Dallas Buyers Club, I haven't seen Her, I haven't seen Nebraska, or Philomena (whatever the hell that was). That's four movies out of the nine that were nominated. And it's been 2 years since all those movies came out.

So even if I think that Idris Elba did a great job and should have gotten a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod in 2015, I don't feel totally comfortable always saying that because I can't really say that that he gave a better performance than Ethan Hawke in Boyhood, or JK Simmons in Whiplash.

I just really liked this movie.

Overall, it's a gritty, heavy movie about child soldiers in Africa and definitely worth checking out. I applaud Netflix because this is the stuff that they should stick to, high quality movies like this. You get a great breakout performance by Abraham Attah and a powerful performance by Idris Elba.

But what did you think of Beasts of No Nation? Did you like it? Do you think it should have been given more consideration for the Oscars in 2015? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So apparently Idris Elba can dance. Enjoy!