Very handsomely made and riveting. It's incredibly hard to watch at times, but that's almost the point. Idris Elba gives a phenomenal performance as does Abraham Attah in his film debut. I did think it was a bit overlong and it drags a bit but this is a very good film that's definitely going to be in the awards conversation this year. B+

I agree with thompsoncory that it does run a bit long, could have easily cut 15-20 minutes I feel. The film is shot very well and Elba is quite strong here with some very dramatic sequences. There was just something missing from it all to make it truly special. It will definitely get some nominations but I don't know if the film will be able to keep up momentum by the time Oscar night rolls around.

A stylish war film depicting the plight of a child soldier, Beasts of No Nation is very easy to admire, but considering the tragic nature of the story, I wish it hit harder. Set in an unidentified (fictional?) West African country torn asunder by civil conflict, the film turns on a wide-eyed adolescent (Abraham Attah) who is first separated from his mother and sister when they flee to the capital and then left entirely alone when his father and brother are shot dead. He is later found in the bush by a rebel squad, and their fiery "Commandant" (an electrifying Idris Elba) enlists him to fight, ushering him into an innocence-scorching inferno of murder and mayhem.

The film is crafted with focus and skill by Cary Joji Fukunaga, an ambitious director known for his lushly Gothic, compactly told adaptation of Jane Eyre and the iconic first season of the HBO anthology series True Detective. As a directorial exercise, the quality of Beasts of No Nation is hard to dispute. Several scenes of chaos and combat unfold in a single, serpentine shot without a cut (at least not a discernible one), and others achieve a rhapsodic, sweeping war-is-a-beautiful-nightmare quality reminiscent of Apocalypse Now or The Thin Red Line.

However, the decision to set the film in an anonymous African country falls a tad flat. This is a case in which well-researched specificity (or even fictional specificity) would trump universality, and I quietly wonder if it is not a shade ignorant for the film's creators to assume, "Oh, violent groups with acronyms for names perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence and political unrest. Ha, this could be anywhere in Africa!" Also, the vivid sense of cinematic bravado and propulsion driving the film from one lavish, carnage-fueled set piece to the next undercuts a certain internal cohesion, particularly in regard to the protagonist's transformation from a scared child to a drug-abusing, hard-charging fighter. Clarity and character are outpaced by the search for spectacle as the plot almost becomes a series of disturbing vignettes. A close-but-no-cigar compensatory inclusion comes in the form of expository voice-over: literary musings to his mother and God presented in faux-guileless poor English. In general, in dramatizing this solemn and topical subject, I cannot help but believe a profound and journalistic humanism should reinforce the technical action-movie gusto. Beasts of No Nation, though well-acted and extremely captivating as a sensory experience, more than delivers the directorial flair, but rather feigns the conscience.

B

This is a very well shot movie and there are scenes here and there that are visually stunning and visceral but I never emotionally connected to Agu's transformation(s) throughout the movie which made the feel longer than it is. Abraham Attah is great in here and Elba steals every scene he is in here (though I was never moved by his performance). Cary Fukunaga does a great job setting up the scenes specially the civil war scenes in particularly the one where they take back the village. I just did not felt that the movie challenged me emotionally and while a lot of transformations are on display it never connects emotionally in second half as it does in the first half.

B