The Beast

A good study of characters in conflict. The only people who get along in the movie are the main character Konstantine and his translator. And of course, the translator gets screwed.As a child of the 1980s, movies about Afghanistan and the mujaheddin were one of our niche genres. There's a couple of points I'd like to clear up for people.1. There is no Russian spoken in this movie. This is completely on purpose. Otherwise the entire movie would be subtitled between Dari and Russian. Americans hate subtitles. Ergo, the tank crew use their normal accents. This is not dissimilar to Ernest Hemingway's use of Spanish in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" . That book only appears to be written in English. Read carefully and it's in Spanish. Or an even more apt comparison - the original Red Dawn. Do you really think that movie is about the invasion of the US? John Milius wanted to do a movie about Afghanistan, but couldn't film there....(Kevin Reynolds was the director of both Red Dawn and The Beast).2. The mujaheddin - If anybody has done any research on the Afghan War, you'd know they WERE incompetent for the first years after the invasion. It wasn't until Charlie Wilson and his bunch got the CIA involved did they begin to make the Soviets regret their decision to invade The Graveyard of Empires. They were fighting the largest mechanized army in the world with 19th rifles. Of course they were losing.3. There are a few folks in here that call this movie Muslim Propaganda. It isn't. The Pasthun, although ferociously Sunni, rely on their own tribal traditions as much as they do on Islam. Plus, in the 1980s, everybody was in love with these guys. It wasn't until after the Soviet Union withdrew and the US left, did the Taliban move in and the country descended into civil war, leading us to UBL, 9/11, and where we are now.4. This movie made me realize how freakin' important GPS is.5. There is one problem with this movie - in multiple scenes, everybody would have died of heat stroke and dehydration, but hey willing suspension of disbelief.

5 Stars may be subjective, well it is. I rate it as such due to providing the picture of what Afghanistan was like during the Russian invasion. Having deployed multiple times to Afghanistan, from viewing the movie again (had watched the original film release), I could see at how much detail was given; such as the Russian Tank Officer having electrical tape on a boot (to show of the poor logistics) and of using authentic Soviet tanks (captured Syrian tanks). This was I believe the first film to simulate the firing of cannons without using real ordnance (used a form of water) and the effect looks quite real, quite an achievement. There are only a few discrepancies, such as using a US .30 MG disguised as a Soviet HMG, you have to look for them.The film does provide a culture and the living of Afghans, and not much has changed since.If it a very good dramatic movie, not action oriented or a popcorn movie.The opening quote sets the tone...

Other reviews were right on when they said something to the effect that this movie portrays both sides of the invasion very well. Dzundza (in his thinner years) as the crazed tank commander works and the whole movie pivots on a wrong turn into a box canyon. The tank scenes were very good and the Afghan side was well done and there was some insight into the culture. Ostensibly an action movie this was also a pretty good drama. I can’t find fault with the Russians speaking excellent English because that’s how it had to be made to get funding and doing it with subtitles would not have been an improvement and using them would probably have meant the movie didn’t get into production. We found it entertaining from beginning to end and there was nice twists along the way.

The Beast is a really odd war film. It takes place in Afghanistan in 1981 early on in the USSR’s occupation of the country. It follows a Soviet tank that gets lost and a small group of Afghan fighters that wants to destroy it. What’s different is that the Soviets are the villains and yet they are the main characters. It’s just one part of a very mixed up plot.The start of the film lays out why the Soviets were bad. They carry out a scorched Earth policy by destroying a village and run over a man with a tank that they capture. It raises the question of why the audience should care about them as the focus of the film. Is it just to see whether they die at the end?The other part of the story is about the Afghan fighters. That was a nice addition because in the vast majority of war movies you only get one side while the others just get blown up and die. Here again the movie runs into problems however. If they are the protagonists why is the majority of the film about the tank?To top it all off there’s an unbelievable twist when the tank commander refuses to be rescued. It doesn’t make any sense and just adds to an already confused storyline.C

Recently watched an Israeli tanker movie called Lebanon, which I really enjoyed. Thought I'd watch this older film, as I'd heard it was similar in some respects. It's kind of a bit odd having Yanks portraying Soviet troops in Afghanistan! It's also intriguing to see the people and the Mujadeen so sympathetically portrayed. The irony is of course that official US policy changed over time; one minute supporting and training/equipping a particular Muslim faction, next trying to exterminate them!The acting in this movie is on the better side of average for mainstream Hollywood. It's interesting seeing how the tight knit crew of a tank breaks down under condition of hostile isolation. The Russian tank itself is ultimately almost as much a character in the film as any of the human protagonists. And it's an awesome beast!It's also great to see the confusion and mechanics of war portrayed, as they are here, and how technology dovetails into all that. In some ways this is an excellent film. And I really very much enjoyed it. But I guess in the end I like it more than loved it. So I'm scoring it four out of five for now. Still definitely recommended viewing however.

A hard-hitting film looking at the Russian war in Afghanistan.Erick Avari is probably the star player as the Pashtun interpreter torn between Russian communist ideology and the reality of marauding psychoaths murdering their way through his people: A study in confirmation bias.It would have been nice if the American actors playing Russians had gone for 'Holywood Neutral' rather than 'New York'. Still, it was a better choice than fake Russian.

I first caught this movie on Freeview a long time ago, and subsequently watched it again twice, making that in total three times. I then went out and bought it on DVD for a cheap price, and have since bought it from Amazon. I could have said enough there to make you think about buying it, but a proper review is not a review without some elaboration for purposes of clarification: for example, why I liked it. Well, for starters, it was on late and having nothing else to do I consequently became engrossed not once but about three times over a short period of time (you "showing all week on Film4" afficionados know what I'm on about) in a movie that spirited you away to another time, another place that could mystify you even more than, say, a fantasy or a sci-fi story especially if you were watching it alone...which I was. I was drawn into the world of Afghanistan's desert (the focus of the movie situation) and into the observation of the survival and self-maintenance of a lone Russian tank crew on an invasive mission based on actual historical conflict. Of course, this story was as fictional as if you put John Wayne in the Wild West, but it was gripping and as real as if you were really there nonetheless. Although reality bites only when, for example, the likes of world cinema is accompanied by subtitles in its native language, this was in English but truly worked and remained convincing throughout where concerned the faux-Russian tank crew, and also avoided the frustration of not being able to follow the movie with ease as a result. After all, you'd need an interpreter for a foreign language anyway: what difference does it make having subtitles or the movie dubbed? Thankfully, this was neither: the only foreign language that needed to be converted into subtitles was the Aghan actors'. The Russian tank crew were played by American actors but play their parts well. I liked the feeling of mystery of the unknown, unexplored territory and also how the film developed into a story of revenge with a twist in its tale. Jarhead had a similar kind of atmosphere, of heat, of loneliness, of lostness and yet of nature in all its raw energy. My rating for this movie is a personal rating for a movie that greatly endeared itself to me on a night alone with a tank crew in the wilderness, and as such is sincere and if you read my review looking for a good war movie without any real war on a grand scale in it, I promise you you can take my word for it!

I love this movie! as its from 1988 you can expect the special effects to be a bit old-fashioned it's a shame they didn't make fury like this as I hate it when Hollywood want something cool but don't know tanks capabilities or tactics

Puts me back to that region...a realistic portrayal of times under the Russian period. The filming is great and the tension palpable between the crew. Not your silly Hollywood blockbuster stuff, thankfully.