It is not surprising that Beast was a film Russell Crowe cared about greatly. So much so that he carried it forward as executive producer, so much so that he co-wrote the screenplay jointly with the author of the subject (David Frigerio with whom Crowe had worked on Land of Bad), so much so that he played a fundamental role, even if with relatively few appearances. Because Beast is a film in which the legendary Gladiator of cinema tells the gladiators of today, the MMA fighters; because everything in the film, from the cast to the spirit, is quintessentially Australian; because Crowe loves sport very much. And above all, because, it’s not hard to understand, that role there, for him, had to appear irresistible.
Beast: the Italian trailer for the film
The direction of the film, which plays with the rhetoric of great sports cinema, and which clearly aims (even through assonances that sound like tributes) to be for mixed martial arts what Rocky was for boxing, was entrusted to Tyler Atkins. Winner in 2011 of the Australian reality show The Amazing Race Australia, Atkins is someone who comes from a difficult family background and from surf culture, as he has well recounted in his debut feature, in some way autobiographical, titled Bosch & Rockit; and here he sought to restore all the physicality and authenticity of MMA while not forgetting to build his film around human and family issues that anchor all the action to a clear and recognizable human dimension.
The cast sees at the forefront the lead actor Daniel MacPherson, who has also appeared in Land of Bad but also in the film that marked Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, Poker Face. In Land of Bad there was also Luke Hemsworth, the lesser-known brother of Chris and Liam, here in the role of the villain’s manager, the bad fighter, the film’s Ivan Drago: a fighter named Xavier Grau who is portrayed by a true idol of combat sports, Bren Foster, world champion of taekwondo and karate, both disciplines in which he holds black belts, as well as Brazilian ju-jitsu, hapkido, haidong gumdo and hwarangdo.
From the world of sport also comes rugby champion George Burgess, here in the role of the protagonist Patton’s sympathetic and solid sidekick, but there is room also for female characters. The model Kelly Gale (Australian-Indian blood and Swedish culture, in defiance of anyone who still talks about ethnic purity), seen recently in films like Plane and Deep Water, but also in the series Detective Hole, plays the central role of Patton’s wife, while pop star Amy Shark makes her acting debut here in the challenging part of Sammy’s daughter, who has followed in her father’s footsteps on the ring and at his edges.
Fans of combat sports will find in the film everything they might expect, but it would be wrong to say that Beast is a film only for them: although clearly male and testosterone-fueled, it manages to tell characters and situations that everyone can relate to. The spectacular fights are woven together with family bonds being tested, and above all what it means to bear the weight of one’s choices, the weight of the past, and the fatigue and determination required to redeem oneself from past mistakes.
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