WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

tieman64 "Systems exist so we never meet each other." - Mr. Lif This is a review of "Rambo 3", "The Living Daylights" and "The Beast", three action movies from the late 1980s, now interesting for the way in which they toe the Pentagon line regarding Afghanistan's Mujahideen.The best of the three films, "Rambo 3" stars Sylvester Stallone as a Vietnam veteran who lives in a monastery, looks depressed, pumps iron and wears a mullet. Though now a pacifist, Rambo nevertheless returns for "one last job". His old Colonel has been kidnapped by evil Soviets forces and is being imprisoned in a super cool looking military base deep within the heart of Afghanistan. Rambo's mission? Get in, kick ass, get out. As he's essentially a giant walking penis, Rambo severely overcompensates. Not only does he rescue his buddy, but he kicks Russia out of Afghanistan, rallies a band of friendly Mujahideen freedom fighters, teaches locals to love Westerners and schools us all in the evils of communism. The film ends with a title card praising the brave heroes of the Mujahideen."The Living Daylights" tells the same tale, though here our hero is British Secret Agent James Bond (Timothy Dalton). Less homo-erotic than Stallone's film, but equally patriotic, "Daylights" opens with various totems of Britannia - the Rock of Gibraltar, Union Jacks, Harrier jets - before nosediving into a plot about defecting Russians, Afghan opium and evil commies. Once again the film ends with Mujahideen on horseback charging valiantly toward Soviet Forces. The Empires of the West – and their lovable henchmen, Bond and Rambo - love underdog freedom fighters, see.Less cartoonish but more fascist, "The Beast" revolves around a Soviet tank crew. They rape and pillage Afghan villages, blow up mosques, their racist, tyrannical leader is shown to hate even pro-communist Afghan allies, and our hero is an enlightened Russian who defects and joins forces with the Mujahideen to once again, like Rambo, charge headlong into Soviet tanks and helicopters.In all these films, the Mujahideen are portrayed as civilised, well educated freedom fighters pitted against remorseless, uncouth Soviet monsters. What's hilarious is that as soon as the Soviet Union collapses, cinema immediately starts portraying the Mujahideen as villains; they're now of no use. They're US public enemy number 1.In 1893 Russia recognised British "ownership" of Afghanistan. When Britain exited India and its Empire collapsed, Russia moved tentatively in. A communist party was set up and the country's old kings and monarchs kicked out. Major reforms then began taking place - modernisation, a secular government, women's rights, large scale land reforms, public education etc – which were all initially accepted. Some thought communism wouldn't work in a country as conservative and traditional as Afghanistan, but of course Soviet styled communism turned out to be but a form of industrial feudalism with elements of Russian nationalistic tribalism. Afghans supported these changes. Problems quickly began occurring, though. Afghanistan's filled with diverse tribal groups, and cracks began to appear, both inside the communist party – different factions vying for control – and outside, religious and tribal leaders opposing the rapid social changes. As extreme reforms were being carried out in VERY short periods of time with NO concern for Afghan culture, small protests began. Islamist rebels who wanted to restore an older, more traditional Islamic order, were the most vocal. Aided, armed, funded and led by the West, they staged bloody clashes with the pro communist government. This went on for a number of months. Eventually Western backing for these rebels escalated to such an extent that the local government was forced to call for Russian support. Soviet troops arrive, which the West spins as an "invasion". Cue Western propaganda: here was an evil Soviet invasion being held back by lovable rebels. The truth was almost the complete opposite. Afghanistan was a Soviet ally dealing with CIA-backed Islamist radicals trying to topple the capital of Kabul. Later, US defence secretary Robert Gates would say: "We mean to suck the Soviets into a Vietnamese-styled quagmire." And Zbigniew Brzezinski: "We knowingly increased the probability of their intervention with the aim of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap. The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, 'We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.'"For several years the West arms the Mujahideen and uses them to fight a proxy war against the Soviets. Recognising this all as a giant waste of time, the Soviets eventually pull out. The West, meanwhile, continues arming rebels and jihadists. The Mujahideen, essentially religious fanatics, violent gangs and conservative psychos, then begin fighting for control of the country, echoing, of course, the current "engineered destabilisation" of places like Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Libya. The Taliban/Mujahideen then take over Afgahnistan and rule from roughly 1995 to 2001. When they refuse oil and mineral rights to the US in the late 90s, a campaign begins in the West to turn them into "our enemies". From here on the Taliban are blamed for 9/11, linked with al-Qaeda, women's rights abuses and "crazy Islamic Laws", none of which were previously deemed a problem until the Taliban began courting Argentinian gas companies over the Unocal-CentGas consortium (ie Bush and Cheney). In response, Unocal appears before the US Congress and demands the removal of the Taliban regime. Days later the Taliban are issued an ultimatum: take our offer or we drop the bombs. Months later all US-held Taliban assets are seized, embargoes and bans are put in place and the country is invaded by a Western Alliance. In other words, it was only when absolute control of local resources was challenged that the Taliban regime, played like a puppet for over half a century, was openly discredited.4/10 - Worth no viewings.

zauberzerao The exact story, I don't know; but it goes something along the lines of: The Beast of War was played at theaters for a short while. The company that distributed it, if not the production company that produced it, went bankrupt, was bought out by I forget whom, then redistributed to theaters under the title The Beast. That's what happened.So, yes: the only thing that really takes away from Beast is that we have our Soviet tankers speaking with American accents. Look past that and you have a war movie on par with Hamburger Hill or even Saving Private Ryan. The message that this one sends, I'll venture to say, has a lot more to say than Ryan, but let's not start with the comparisons and contrasts. (Personally, I like Ryan a whole lot, but I also think it is a tad overrated.)With Beast, you have to keep in mind the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the 1940s, specifically the siege of Stalingrad, which saw the Russians taking a victory over the "undefeatable" German army. This time around, the tables are reversed, and it's the Russians who are the aggressors. (Honestly, I still don't know what pretext was used for Soviet Russia to invade Afghanistan. I should read about that.) Jason Patric plays Konstantin Koverchenko, driver of the tank crew which has taken a wrong turn into a valley that has only one way in and out. Soviet ideology and his proclivity to "think for himself," apparently, don't mix well, and so when he and his crew are doggedly pursued by a band of Mujahadeen, he is more and more disillusioned with the Soviet invasion.To make matters worse, his tank commander Daskal (played by George Dzundza from The Deer Hunter) is an ardent Soviet—but more so war hawk— and when a dispute over a fellow crew member, an Afghan communist patriot, ends with the murder of that crew member, whom Koverchenko endeavoured to protect from Daskal's irrational suspicion—when that happens, proverbial sh—— hits the proverbial fan. To make a long story short, Koverchenko shifts loyalty to the Mujahadeen, for whom he has sympathy and admiration.One Mujahid in particular—Taj—is played by Steven Bauer from Scarface and Traffic fame. I am not an expert on Arabic, but he seemed pretty damn convincing to me as a freedom fighter. We also have in the tank crew Stephen Baldwin in, perhaps, his best role apart from The Usual Suspects. We also have Don Harvey, who has been, and probably will always be, type-casted as the scumbag character. (If you do not know whom I speak of, he is the fellow from Creepshow 2, Casualties of War, Tank Girl, and why don't we include Die Hard 2 for extra measure? The only movie that I can think of right now where he doesn't play a scumbag is perhaps The Untouchables. You could put The Thin Red Line in there if you'd like, but it's such a small part that… well, I don't know.)In any case, what we have is a bunch of a character actors and one semi- starring actor taking on an ambitious project. The product is gold. Mark Isham's score is something of a highlight itself. Seriously, this movie is such a downer if you really think about it. (Mark Isham, by the way, also scored Crash. So-so movie, badass OST.) Dour, yes, and bittersweet, too. On top of that, The Beast has one of the best endings I've ever seen in my lifetime. I mean, it really stays with you.Zauber Zerão, die zauberkatze

Michael Neumann One of the few Hollywood films (never mind 'Rambo III') to exploit the Soviet-Afghan war pits the crew of a wayward Russian tank against a handful of rebels bent on vengeance, with the beast of the film's title becoming the machine itself: a fully armored Goliath challenged by the sticks and stones of a primitive nation. It's a robust, masculine adventure, drawing heavily on the juvenile appeal of hardware and firepower, but with more guts than glory at the end of the pursuit and a surprising blend of character development balanced against all the military action. Mark Isham's atmospheric music score sets an effective mood, but it might have been a more challenging film (though of course less accessible) if the Russian troops had thought to camouflage their Southern California accents: it's as if they came through the Khyber Pass by way of Malibu Beach. The Afghan natives speak through subtitles, so why not the Soviet invaders as well?

edumacated this is one of the best combat films i have ever seen. and it feels, looks and smells real.it has everything: the conflict between the idealistic draftee and the hardened professional; the difference in commitment between invaded and invader; and self sacrifice; the ultimate warrior virtue.it shows you can't always pick a conflict's winner solely by judging which side has the greatest amount of firepower, asks whether one should gauge a society's sophistication by the modern standard of technological achievement, or by its moral sophistication? and proves that terrain may often be the greatest adversary an invading army has to conquer.and you get to feel just how impregnable a tank feels to foot-bound infantry--you feel its awesome firepower and how dangerous it is in the attack, and the potential sacrifice inherent in an infantry assault on on this impregnable beast.and at the bottom of all these realities lurks the ultimate occupier's question, "how come we're the Nazis this time?".and then there is George Dzundza. how come he didn't get more hard roles like this one? he was always the jolly fat guy who bought the next round. what a waste. but maybe his weight is what kept him sidelined. too bad. i bet he jumped through a giraffes tonsils to play this role, no matter how hard the shoot must have been, or how much weight they wanted him to lose.