David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury, Suicide Squad) directs Cameron Alexander’s script about retired Special Forces soldier James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his beloved but PTSD-suffering military combat dog Odin, (played by Uber, Seeka, Ryker, or Hondo), fighting to survive the Alaskan wilderness after narrowly surviving a plane crash. They must hike 58 miles through rough terrain in freezing temperatures in a landscape shared by predators. (101 min.)
Glen I’m a sucker for a movie about a loyal dog, and this tearjerker delivers. It starts at a leisurely pace. A seaplane pilot and his Belgian Malinois are weaving their way through the stunning Alaskan mountains, eventually setting down on a remote but idyllic shoreline for some camping and fishing. The dog clearly loves the man, and the man feels the same, but in flashbacks, we learn both are physically and psychologically wounded by the combat they’ve shared, creating an indelible bond between man and beast. The story’s got all the elements of a dude film with a macho protagonist and eventually tons of action, and if you liked The Grey (2011) or All Is Lost (2013), you’ll dig it. But it’s also tender and poignant with an ending that will both break and fill your heart.
HEART OF THE BEAST
What’s it rated? PG-13
What’s it worth, Anna? Full price
What’s it worth, Glen? Full price
Where’s it showing? Colony, Fair Oaks, Park, Stadium 10
Anna Show me a dog on a movie poster and you’ve sold a ticket. Both Odin and James are truly devoted to each other, and no matter the level of peril, they’ll show up for one another time and time again. There are really only three human actors in this film—a woman we briefly see at the beginning and end (Anna Lambe) and Watkins (JK Simmons), an outdoorsman canoeing down the river whom James spends a night camped next to, much to his chagrin. This brief encounter with another person is how we learn some of the key character points of both James and Odin. As Bertrand Russell once said, “War does not determine who is right—only who is left,” and both man and beast may have made it out of war, but war will always live inside them. When James suffers a medical emergency and crashes the plane, amazingly both survive, but the Alaskan wilderness is a perilous place to be stranded, and while both Odin and James are fighters, the unforgiving beauty they’re surrounded by continues to test their fate over the 58-mile journey they must make to the road.
Glen James and Odin’s run-in with Watkins also shows just how wary both are of strangers. They’re in the wilderness because they seek solitude from all but one another. Lambe’s time on-screen is brief, but it carries home the emotional heft of the film’s ending. There are other actors in the military flashbacks, but those are full of mostly explosions and the chaos of war—not developed characters. The real show is the connection between Pitt and his four canine colleagues. This one gave me all the feels.
Anna I was pretty broken by the end of this one. It manages to pull at all the heartstrings, from the human side and from the dog-mom side. I can tell you, looking at our three little flat-faced runts right now, that if you and I ever needed to rely on them for survival, we’d be in big trouble. I think that’s part of the reason why watching dogs with jobs is so heartrending—the stoicism and devotion is downright heroic. Pitt is a great actor, and he seemed to really absorb himself into James. I’ll revisit this one again when I need a good cry. ∆
Arts Editor Glen Starkey and freelancer Anna Starkey write Split Screen. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2026.
