Elba is the top dog in ‘Beasts of No Nation’

Anyone who is a Netflix member has access to any number of good films, classic and contemporary. And now, Netflix is offering original material. Or something close to it.

One of those films is "Beasts of No Nation," a film that was among the trio of selections we reviewed for the Spokane Public Radio program "Movies 101." Following is my own review of the film:

Unless you’re a fan of the HBO series “The Wire,” or you spend time watching BBC-produced programs such as “Luther,” you may not know the name Idris Elba.

And if that is the case, you should correct the situation as quickly as possible. One way: Go to your Netflix prompt and order the movie “Beasts of No Nation.”

Written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, and adapted from the novel of the same name by Nigerian writer Uzodinma Iweala, “Beasts of No Nation” is set in an unnamed African country – unnamed even though it was filmed in Ghana and stars a Ghanian teenager, Abraham Attah.

Attah plays Agu, a young boy who lives with his family in a protected zone threatened by the larger country’s civil war. Even given the precarious circumstances in which he lives, Attah experiences a relatively normal life – cadging soldiers for the occasional dollar, disobeying his parents, making fun at his older brother’s expense.

Then one day everything changes. War invades the zone and Agu finds himself alone, running for his life through the countryside. And the life he discovers remakes him completely: Agu is recruited into an army overseen, and supremely controlled, by a charismatic man known only as the Commandant.

As played by Elba, the Commandant is as engaging as a high-school football coach, albeit one with sociopathic tendencies. Loving but stern, he seduces his young troops. He promises both opportunities for revenge and the chance to earn a better life, and he imbues each soldier with a sense that the bond between them – between him as the symbolic father-leader and them as his child followers – is something special. Born under fire, that bond is nearly unbreakable – even when the Commandant, as he typically does, abuses it.

Ultimately, though, the bond does break. Because the truth is, the Commandant is only a small cog in a much bigger rebel wheel. And when his closest followers, including Agu, see him treated like a lackey by the rebel leader, the Commandant’s charisma falters. And, gradually, everything that holds the boy-soldier army together dissipates. And Agu in particular is left with the question: What now?

“Beasts of No Nation” is only Fukunaga’s fourth feature, though he may be best known for having directed the first season of the HBO series “True Detective.” Opting for a small theatrical release, in only 31 theaters, he agreed to let Netflix play the movie for its subscribers. And that probably was a smart move: Since its Oct. 16 release, Fukunaga’s film has earned a reported 3 million views.

However you see it, though, “Beasts of No Nation” is an intense view. Not only is it difficult to watch the violence – in one scene, a man’s skull is cleaved by a machete – but the abuse to children, even if it is designed to make a point, is even worse.

Elba, though, is a revelation. Few actors have the kind of personal power that can make evil seem, at first, so attractive but then, finally, merely pathetic.