Renny Harlin’s The Beast

Sadly, we will never have a President John McCain, but at least we have call-sign “Paladin” in this new movie. Weirdly, we never get his full name, but this fictional POTUS was a Vietnam veteran. It is a good thing too, because he is going to need his combat mindset (his “beast” mode) to survive a coordinated global coup attempt in Renny Harlin’s The Beast, which opens today in theaters.

It isn’t just happening in the USA. According to reports, insurrectionists have already taken out the British Prime Minister and several other European heads of state. Some descriptions of the film refer to the coordinated revolutionaries as a “militia,” but that is a loaded term that doesn’t quite fit. Their ideology remains a mystery, but they look like an army of balaclava-clad fanatics.

Regardless, their short-term objective is clear: take out the president. Clearly, they had inside access to Secret Service protocols and procedures. However, Paladin was saved, at least for now, by the sacrifices of his protective detail. Taft is the last one left alive, but he needs medical attention soon.

Consequently, Paladin reverses roles with the Secret Service agent, dumping him in the backseat of the Presidential limo, while he drives. Technically, that violates a lot of operational rules, but the president does not care. Fortunately, his limousine is tricked out with cutting edge defensive weaponry. He also has combat infantry experience that comes flooding back to him. In fact, Taft’s wounds remind him of those suffered by his closest Army buddy. Paladin assures the Agent his friend survived, but viewers won’t be so sure, judging from the visions of a dying soldier that seem to haunt the President from the backseat.

In a way, The Beast is an attempt to turn Seven Days in May into Locke. It is largely set inside the Presidential limo, but Harlin skillfully milks tension from the confined setting. Of course, it is also quite a slick ride. Some of the car’s James Bond-worthy counter-measures look surprisingly cool on-screen. There are so many points at which The Beast could have fallen flat on its face, but Harlin somehow always keeps it charging forward. Consequently, this is probably his best film since Skiptrace.

Obviously, having Samuel L. Jackson as Paladin also helps a lot. He mostly falls back on his greatest hits (even including a discussion of his frequent M-F bombs), but that perfectly suits the film. Joel Kinnaman also deserves credit for his convincing physical performance as the bleeding Taft.

The Beast never features any suitcase nukes, germ warfare, or any other form of WMD. Yet, it still shows the fragility of our democratic social order, when confronted with “mere” conventional weapons and superior planning. The closest real-life analog is probably Mumbai rather than 9/11. To his credit, Harlin depicts the fear and panic resulting from anarchy in the streets. He also shrewdly turns Jackson loose to do his thing. Recommended with unexpected enthusiasm for fans of the star and 24-style thrillers, The Beast opens today (10/9) in theaters, including the AMC Empire in New York.