Beast Movie Review

“Beast” is a rough, bloody, testosterone-fueled smack-down of a movie. It deals with an older, retired MMA fighter. His days of winning in Mixed Martial Arts are over, until a situation puts him back into the ring. Part of it is for redemption, and part of it is for revenge.

Patton James (played by Daniel MacPherson) is the former MMA champ. He worked with a local trainer named Sammy (played by Russell Crowe). Patton had a run-in with the law, due a bar brawl. He was out after a few years, and soon married Luciana (played by Kelly Gale). Patton had put aside his fighting gloves and now works on a fishing boat.

Patton’s final fight was ten years ago. He beat a fighter named Xavier Grau (played by Bren Foster). Patton was out of the MMA world for all those years. Xavier Grau went on to have a great record in the MMA. His only loss was to Patton, and that still irks him to no end.

Patton has a younger brother named Malon (played by Mojean Aria). He is very young and is a cocky MMA fighter. Xavier has a manager named Gabriel Stone (played by Luke Hemsworth). Stone sets up a match between Xavier and Malon. This is one way that Xavier has to get back at Patton.

This match between these two gets really rough. Xavier gets in a cheap shot to Malon at the end of the round. It was illegal, and it put Malon into the hospital. Xavier is suspended from MMA fights for six months. Nadine James (played by Saphira Moran), Malon’s wife, goes to Patton and Luciana for help.

Patton is furious that his brother was talked into the fight with Xavier. But it is still not over. The manager Gabriel Stone comes to Patton with an offer that he cannot pass up. Stage a fight between Patton and Xavier — this will be a rematch from ten years ago.

This is too much money to pass up. Patton is no longer working on the boat, and his coworker there has also quit. Neal (played by George Burgess), who also now needs a job, comes to Patton to be an assistant. But the only place where Patton can train is back with his prior trainer – Sammy.

Over at the gym, Sammy will have nothing to do with Patton. Sammy’s daughter Rose (played by Amy Shark) now runs the gym. She agrees to help Patton train for this upcoming fight. Gabriel Stone gets back to Malon, after his is released from the hospital. The doctors tell Malon to lay low for six months.

But Gabriel works out a deal with Malon after Xavier gets suspended. The fight between Patton and Xavier has been cancelled, and Malon needs the money. So, there is an unsanctioned fight that gets set up. It will be totally off-the-books and under-the-radar. Xavier against Malon — and Malon is in no condition to fight.

Of course, there is a tragic outcome, and now Patton is even more riled up. There are some strings pulled, and Xavier is permitted one more fight. But this one will be sanctioned, and it will be between him and Patton. It is fight to recreate the one from ten years ago.

Patton finally gets permission to do this fight from his wife, Luciana. Rose will be his trainer, with Neal also beside him near the ring. Even Sammy agrees that Patton has the will to win, but needs to train harder than ever before. Sammy was sore at Patton for not coming back to the gym after Patton was out of jail.

Xavier Grau is at the top of his game. His manager, Gabriel Stone, is ready to make any deal he can to make the rematch possible. Patton James is a has-been fighter, working harder than ever to become a top-flight fighter. He has the grit, he has the will, and he has the support of the people he loves.

The fight will happen in Bangkok, many miles away from his home in Australia. But now with Patton back in shape, and with the vivid memory of his brother, he is now a man on a mission. His mission is to grind it out with Xavier Grau and beat him at his own game. It will be a rough, bloody, testosterone-fueled fight…

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“Beast” is movie that takes on many of the long-standing tropes of the ‘sports’ movie. It does a very decent job to weave in a lot of well-known ideas from other movies. There are some fresh ways to repeat the old classics. This movie tries to find those ways.

There is a huge amount of MMA style fighting going on here. The fight choreography is planned out and done perfectly. Each punch and every hold looks very realistic. Daniel MacPherson (as Patton) holds up very well. Also, Bren Foster (as Xavier Grau) is formidable foe.

Russell Crowe is about the right age to play a similar character as ‘Mickey’, from the “Rocky” movie. Also, Crowe was the co-writer for this screenplay. The cast does fine with the script, being a nice mix-and-match from a whole lot of prior boxing and fighting movies in the past years.

Not every idea in this movie is brand new. But the cast and crew put in a major effort to give the audience a true smack-down of a movie. It works almost all the time, even when the round bell is about to ring.  There are no major penalties found, and the action is heavy and thick.

“Beast” is a knock-down, drag-out slugfest of guys hitting up some major MMA action. The generic movie title does not portray the level of brutal fighting in this movie. It could make the squeamish squirm.