The Beast (2026) – Review
Quick Thoughts:
- I love when Renny Harlin and Samuel L. Jackson team up. The Long Kiss Goodnight, Deep Blue Sea, Cleaner, and The Beast are a good time.
- It’s the best Renny Harlin-directed action film since 12 Rounds.
- There’s a wonderful bit about how Jackson says “mother****er”
- Joel Kinnaman and Samuel L. Jackson put in a good shift.
- Wonderful railgun moment.
- The world needs more 90-minute (without credits) movies.
- I like the RoboCop (2014) reunion.
- Between the super SUV in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the “rolling armored white house on wheels” in The Beast, Jackson loves an armored vehicle.
At a brisk 99 minutes, The Beast is an expertly crafted high-concept action film that lets Samuel L. Jackson shine (and blow up mercenaries). It also lets Renny Harlin do what he does best: direct a visually interesting action film that punches above its weight. Filmed in Spain, Renny and crew spent 18 days shooting in an XR virtual studio with LED screens, and the result is solid-looking VFX that never detract from the action. Cinematographer Jacques Jouffret (American Primeval, Novocaine, Gran Turismo) does a fine job of finding interesting shots within the badass vehicle, preventing a claustrophobic/repetitive look. Overall, it’s a technically polished low-budget action film that wants to be nothing more than a good time.
The film opens with Joel Kinnaman’s character, Agent Taft, battling a masked mercenary inside a rolling armored white house on wheels nicknamed “The Beast.” The two bulky men tussle inside the spacious backseat as President Oscar Paladin (Samuel L. Jackson) drives through a warzone between a well-stocked militia and overmatched Secret Service agents who are mowed down in the chaos. During the fight (which ends with a beautiful explosion), Agent Taft is shot three times while kicking his opponent out of the vehicle, which knocks him out of the action and forces Paladin to drive the car, save Taft, and escape a highly organized militia who’ve unleashed a coordinated attack around the world.
Between the plane crash in Deep Water and the meat-and-potatoes action (this is a compliment) in The Beast, Renny Harlin seems rejuvenated and able to recapture the action magic he created in Cliffhanger, 12 Rounds, and Die Hard 2. In true Renny Harlin fashion, he signed on for The Beast after director James Madigan dropped out (Renny takes a lot of gigs with little prep time). Thankfully, his relationships with Jackson and Kinnaman let him jump into the project successfully. You can tell that Jackson feels comfortable with Harlin because he is lively, funny, and fully committed. Jackson also has solid chemistry with Kinnaman, who spends 100% of his screen time bleeding out in the back of the rolling tank. The two drink whiskey, and talk about Waylon Jennings, crunchy snow, bread cast, and how to say the word “motherf****er.”
The screenplay by Umair Aleem (Kate, The Beekeeper 2) is a bit clunky in that it saddles Jackson’s character with PTSD-esque symptoms from his days as a soldier, which conveniently manifest during the crisis. This means that Jackson has to survive the unidentified soldiers and control the “beast” inside him to help save the world. Since it takes place almost entirely in a vehicle, extra subplots make sense, but you can tell Harlin is better at staging fun action scenes than at handling a man learning to deal with trauma. That being said, Aleem deserves credit for writing a high-concept action film that moves propulsively and gives Jackson a chance to crush a lead role.
