Patton ‘The General’ James (Daniel Macpherson) was an MMA legend right before the sport became a global brand. Losing it all after a bar fight led to prison. Patton works on a fishing boat with his best friend Neal (George Burgess) and works t support his wife Luciana (Kelly Gale) and his family.
Then Patton’s brother Malon (Mojean Aria) is put in the hospital after an illegal knockout move from Xavier Grau (Bren Foster). Grau is undefeated apart from his very first fight, against Patton. Offered enough money to solve his problems, Patton throws himself on the mercy of his old trainer Sammy (Russell Crowe) and his daughter Rose (Amy Shark). He has seven weeks to get ready. Grau is waiting.
Co-written by David Frigerio and Crowe and directed by Tyler Atkins, Beast ticks every fight movie box. There’s an unscrupulous promoter, an underground fight that has catastrophic consequences, a cocky villain, a lovable sidekick, the whole bit. But much like spiritual corner man Warrior, it takes all those standard issue tropes and makes something of them.
The movie never loses sight of the enormous consequences of both the sport and the actions of the people in it. Mojean Aria is haunting as Patton’s cocky, preening doomed younger brother whose moments of weakness are glimpsed behind his constant swagger. Bren Foster, increasingly the face of the new wave of martial arts movies, brings complementary depth to Grau. Under gloriously bad frosted tips he shows us moments of emotion trying to swim to the surface and how empty Grau’s brags are even as he’s dismantling opponents. He’s lived the life Patton wants to, and it’s empty and, on some level, he knows it. Crowe too excels in a near-cameo as Sammy, bringing an exhausted, zen-like contempt to his scenes. His reconciliation with Patton is fantastic, the two men connecting the only way they know how, through a mantra that serves them well inside the cage and out.
But the standouts here are Shark, Burgess and MacPherson. Shark’s cheerful, laconic presence gives the gym scenes a very different energy and Burgess builds on that. There’s a moment where she talks about how good a fighter she was before she blew her knee out that made this former Judoka wince in sympathy. Neal, meanwhile, is an enormous, gentle, very funny guy who is both the worst and best training partner possible and again, has hidden depths.
But MacPherson’s the man in the arena on this one. Looking uncannily like Hugh Jackman he’s got a mournful, forced calm that gives Patton’s action enormous weight. He’s funny when he needs to be, calm when he can be and is made entirely of heart. He’s the platonic ideal of the redemption narrative totally aware he’s fucked up, totally ready to atone.
The direction, and measured tone from Atkins builds on all this so well you forgive the movie the nods it has to make to the form. Grau does things here that would ensure he’d be in prison and entire organisations would be shut for allowing him on their roster. The sponsorship from One Fighting Championship leads to some egregious product placement and a gnawing sense of the movie being an unusually bloody advertisment and there’s a case for the movie running a little long. But under all that is methodical, calm depictions of a sport so often depicted as bestial steroid-addled rage, and a surprisingly nuanced deep dive into a man building himself into something new. It’s not as kind-hearted as Warrior, but it’s definitely in the same weight class even if it’s an underdog. And who doesn’t love an underdog?
Beast is streaming now