Beasts of No Nation (2015)

Strong and Moving!

Simply A Masterpiece

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Netflix movie, Beast of No Nation, directed by Cary Fukunaga, is about a young West African boy named Agu. The specific setting is unknown, but it is somewhere in Africa. Agu lives in a village that is protected by Nigerian soldiers. Since it is a buffer zone, many things are run down, so there is no schooling. The families inside are suppose to be safe, however the village gets ambushed by rebels. Unfortunately, Agu's father and brother are executed by the rebels. Agu manages to escape into the forest just to be captured by another rebel group. He will later be brainwashed and become a child soldier for the Native Defense Forces, NDF. The director's background includes a couple of movies and a TV show. He is definitely qualified for motion picture production since he has won a Primetime Emmy along with 25 wins and 22 nominations. The budget he had to make this movie was 6 million dollars. This movie's settings were realistic because it was shot in Ghana. SInce there was not many special effects needed for this film, viewers got a great visual for how these West Africans lived and what they went through. Although the places the movie takes place are beautiful, the conditions many of the people lived in are horrible. The village Agu was in at the beginning of the movie was rundown and dirty with lots of garbage around. On the outskirts, refugees would surround the village pleading their way to get in. There was not a lot of money to be made inside the village, so the kids made a buck where they could. For example, Agu took apart the shell of the TV in order to try and sell to someone in the village. Another way Agu and his brother made a few dollars was by purposely blocking the roadway and making people pay to get by. These two examples show how rough it was for kids to be living in this village because there is simply no schooling and money. One of the camps that the commandant and the others started for themselves was extremely unhealthy. One of the promises of the commandant was to give the kids better than what they had. Instead the kids were left digging trenches and cleansing themselves with muddy water. The living condition was not the worst thing for the boys though. It was the fact that they were child soldiers brainwashed to fight and kill who they were told. The movie does a great job with these scenes, especially with the acting from the kids. Agu definitely did a great job persuading the audience that he went through a mental change from the commandant. After the brainwashing, Agu's attitude toward everything changed. He turned into a soldier. One example of is true change was when he killed an innocent man. This shows how he was manipulated into thinking he was doing the right thing, but in reality he was turning into the type of person that killed his father and brother. Since this movie is not strictly based off of a true event, rather based on general true information, it is hard to know what the purpose of the film really is. One way to look at why it was made is how it portrays the brutality children went through during these war times in African places. Also, there really is not any factual or historical errors in this film. This is because there is no answer to base the movie off of. This movie was produced by Netflix, a company famously known in the United States. This can show who the movie movie was made for. It was made for the audience of the United States because that is the audience it is mostly targeting. Overall, the movies overall filmmaking and performance of the actors was top notch. The sequence from the beginning to the end was very clear and fluent. The acting from the commandant was excellent. This is because he plays the strong leader during a war while being able to be somewhat of a "father figure" to the kids. For a child, Agu's actor did a great job narrating and acting out the different emotions of his character from when he was with his family to when he was a soldier. In conclusion, this is a great movie to have have open ideas as to what is the true events it is based off of because there is no backstory to it.

The film Beast of No Nation is a movie about how a civil war in Africa can be very brutal and inhumane. The film follows a young African child whose village was invaded by an unnamed army, and whose dad and brother are killed by this army. He runs away and stumbles into a rebel army that trains him to be a child soldier. The movie follows all of the struggles and horrors that the boy, Agu, goes through, and his mission to get revenge for his father and brother, and get back to his mother and sister. The movie goes through all aspects of being a soldier, like the cruel commandant and the killings that a kid has to do. The movie is very sad and emotional and is a very good movie for learning about what happens in some African countries, and the brutality that happens there. The movie is not based on real events that happened, but it is a fictional story based on real life accounts of the civil wars across Africa. Since it is fictional, the filmmakers took a few artistic liberties with the film. One of these things is the fact that Agu sold a TV to a soldier in the beginning of the film, and he found the same soldier some time later in the film. Also, the commandant disobeyed his orders and left the supreme commander, which caused them to run out of supplies and eventually surrender. This mostly did not happen in reality, and they likely would have stayed together with the rest of the army. This probably happened to advance the plot, and add another internal story line. The theme of family was very prominent in this movie. Agu being separated from his family and trying to get back to his mother, the entire squadron being one big family, and even the brotherhood between Agu and Strika all show how family is very important in the movie. God and Christianity is also very important. Agu is always speaking to God, and the soldiers all pray to God when someone dies. God is a very prominent figure especially to Agu, and he feels bad about all of the sin he commits, and eventually even feels that he can't speak to God because of all the wrongs he has done. Overall, I thought the movie was very interesting and well-made. It keeps the viewer watching and builds so much emotion that it seems impossible that this kind of thing could even be happening somewhere in the world.

Beasts of No Nation is a Netflix original movie about Child slavery and its role during an African civil war. It is not known in which African country this movie takes place in but the idea was to show that situations like this movie happen in virtually every African country. The film takes us through the life of an African village boy named Agu (Abraham Attah). He is just a normal African boy in a buffer zone at first. What seem to be African rebels come through the village and start to kill anything that moves. Agu witnesses his father and big brother get assassinated by these rebels but he manages to escape. He then gets captured by the rebel group that he would end up joining. The Commandant brings Agu under his wing along with the other ruthless savages and he slowly becomes a rebel, like the ones that killed Agu's brother and father. Agu basically gets brainwashed into something he hated aka African Rebels. Overall, this movie does a fantastic job showing how child slavery really can effect a Civil War. It does a great job showing the psychological brainwash of making a child soldier as well. Abraham Attah aka the actor that plays Agu did an exceptional job as his role as the little African boy. Personally one of the best child actor performances I have ever seen. The film itself surprised me. I thought this movie was gonna be maybe a little boring but, it was the opposite. I really enjoyed it. The picture was phenomenal. The acting was pretty good as well, headlined by Abraham Attah's portrayal of the fictional Agu. If i had to rate this movie I would give it 8 or 8 and a half stars out of 10.

Agu is a young boy in an unnamed African nation in the midst of a civil war. There are no services or school for him and his young friends. His father is a local leader. He lives in a buffer zone protected by Nigerian peacekeepers until the peace collapses. Government forces massacre the local population. Agu escapes as his father and brother are killed. He is captured by a rebel force led by Commandant (Idris Elba) who grooms him to be a child soldier.This is a methodical depiction of the brutalization of a childhood. Idris Elba has a commanding powerful presence. The kid is an appealing performer. That's why his corruption is so demoralizing. It's a harsh, heart-breaking movie. It's a Netflix movie that is cinematic in quality. The plot is pretty simple and the kid's journey is relatively straight forward. Fukunaga delivers an unflinching look into this slice of the world.