Heart of the Beast’s Brad Pitt delivers a doggone adventure of epic proportions

Director David Ayer delivers thrills and sentiment in Heart of the Beast, a survival action thriller starring Brad Pitt and an adorable canine. Scott Garfield/Supplied

Starring Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons and a dog

Rarely has a movie at once felt as Budweiser bro-coded and as shamelessly sentimental as Heart of the Beast . The balance, which director David Ayer impressively manages, is right there in the movie’s title.

The survival thriller, about a retired and battle-scarred special forces veteran played by Brad Pitt living in the wild with his fellow soldier, a canine named Odin, is all about indulging traditional spectacles of masculinity while finding the most acceptable excuses to make the alpha males in the audience cry. It all comes down to man’s best friend in this elemental, testosterone-fuelled answer to Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy .