You don’t mess with country bumpkins!
A married couple who are French has bought a property in a small mountain village to live a happy and quiet life. But a company wants to buy their and their neighbors properties, but they won’t sell. Two brothers who want to sell their property start harassing them, and they are getting more and more aggressive. How will this end?
The Beasts is a slow burner that offers great acting and suspense. It’s difficult to be an outsider in a small village where uneducated country bumpkins live. The country bumpkins want to move so they can live a better life than they are living now.
The married couple has no intention of selling, and the husband is nervous. He also owns the worst guard dog in the world who loves everyone. You sense that something bad will happen, and without revealing anything, I was a little surprised by the outcome. I expected something different and more dramatic.
The acting is solid. Two French actors play the married couple, and I recognized Denis Ménochet, who was excellent in Custody (2017). Since the man is built like a tank, you expect him to be the person who hurts people with his fists. But in The Beasts, he’s a nervous wimp, which was interesting to experience.
The runtime is around 140 minutes. The first half builds up the tension, and you don’t think about the long runtime since there are several intense scenes when the outsider is harassed by the two brothers. The second half is much slower, and the pace slows down to a halt. The Beasts then turns into a different type of movie.
The ending was as expected. If you don’t like open endings, then this isn’t the movie for you. But if you like to follow outsiders who are harassed by two dirty pig lovers, then this is a movie you should watch.