"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. "


Afghanistan is that... a bad place for a wrong turn. Even in the best of times Afghanistan is Indian Country. The landscape is rough, roads are few and poorly maintained, maps are vague and often inaccurate, and the natives can be... surly. Nations have been breaking themselves on the rock of Afghanistan for thousands of years. There isn't very much in this bleak place much worth owning, except the roads. Afghanistan is on the way to a lot of places people and nations have wanted to be for centuries. Alexander was on the way to India. The Ottomans were on the way to the Arabian Peninsula. The Russians in the Nineteenth Century were on the way to the Persian Gulf and the British were there to stop them. Then to keep the Turks from threatening their oil in World Wars I and II. The Russians came back again in a strategic move to position themselves to make a jump into either Iran or Pakistan to get that warm water port they've been craving since, what?, Catherine's time. Now the US is there, although so far we're pretty much letting Afghanistan be Afghanistan.

The 1979 Soviet incursion was, to put things mildly, a ill-considered decision. They moved in a matter similar to to how they might have Czechoslovakia, paratroops and tanks in the big cities and installation of a socialist-Marxist puppet government which then set about trying to convert the hinterland tribesmen into good little proletarians. Mistake. The tribesmen of Afghanistan really don't too much care what the people in the big towns and cities do. As long as they are free to live their lives, raise their opium, fight their feuds -- and practice their religion they won't bother whichever Kahn or "master" prevails in Kabul or Kandahar. Ok, so far, so good, except for one thing... It's a Marxist maxim that "religion is the opiate of the masses". Religion and communism don't mix (really Marxism is a sort of religion, but I digress...) Thus the Soviets decided to try to eliminate or marginalize Islam form Afghan life the way they did with Christianity in Europe. Mistake. That and kidnapping Afghan children for "education" in the USSR, and similar repressive acts ripened the hill tribesmen's attitude from suspicious disinterest into deep red hatred. They took up their nearby weapons and started shooting at the Soviets. The Russians responded the way they did elsewhere. Mechanized massacres. Afghanistan has been called Russia's Vietnam and while this is a bit of an over-simplification it is accurate in as much as almost everybody Russian knows somebody who came back from Afghanistan messed up, or not at all. (Note: by "Russian" here, I mean ethnic Russians, who formed the majority of the troops in Afghanistan rather than citizens of the Old USSR generally.)

The movie at hand opens with an idyllic view of an Afghan village. People shuffle to and fro on their daily tasks, feeding the goats and the like. The Imam calling the faithful to prayers from a pint-sized mosque. Old guys cleaning their tricked out 1910-vintage Lee Enfield rifles. Bucolic contentment, Afghan badlands style. Then everything blows up, airstrike followed by a blitz attack by five Soviet tanks. The mission of the Red Army boys is to waste the village and it's inhabitants and discover where the local Mujahidin operators are hiding themselves. No dice the village headman would rather get flattened than talk. After their exercise in winning hearts and minds the Russians dump cyanide in the well and split leaving the few survivors to tell the tale to their friends in the hills. The last tank out gets separated from the column and goes right instead of left. Mistake. Instead of a quick trip back to the Kandahar Road and victory celebrations with vintage antifreeze they head straight into downtown Muj Land.

The tank is crewed by five men, four Russians and an Afghan government soldier. The commander, Daskal, (George Dzundza) is a crusty old soul, a child veteran of Stalingrad. His driver and second is Koverchenko Jason Patric) is a bespectacled college kid doing his conscript thing. The other two Russians (gunner and loader) are Golokov and Kaminski (Steven Baldwin and Don Harvey). The Afghan supernumerary, Samad (Erick Avari) is a reluctant Quisling helping the Russian interlopers for the future benefit of his country, at least that's what he tells himself.

The Afghans are a motley bunch two related, yet warring, groups united by shared hatred of the Russian infidels. After the massacre of the village they take off after the wayward tank, the beast, as they call it.

Here the story takes a split structure switching back and forth between the cramped, dim, grimey confines of the Beast and the wide open badlands that the Muj command. Despite their technological superiority, the Soviets aren't in charge from the get-go. One never knows when one might get one's head shot off by a Muj sniper if one sticks it too far above the hatch. The tank commands the road it travels on but the Afghans command the hills and Afghanistan is nothing but hills. It's worth mentioning here that there is no place on Earth more unsuitable for Cold War Soviet-style armored warfare than the Afghan hinterlands. Hills are steep, roads are few, narrow and poor, and there are rocks, rocks, and rocks everywhere. A lost tank in these parts is like a lost lamb here.

But all is not well in Soviet-Tank-Land either. Tank commander Daskal as things become more desperate starts killing off his crew -- calling Col. Kurtz... as the tank gets more and more beaten up the Afghans get sharper and better organized. Things don't look good for our fraternal socialist heroes...

"The Beast" is based on a play by William Mastrosimone entitled Nanawatai. Nanawatai is an Afghan word (Pashto, to be technical) meaning, roughly, "sanctuary". This is a central custom in Afghan life and forms a central part of the plot of the movie. (Incidentially this was the excuse offered by the Taliban regime for harboring Osama but they and he are several years in the future in this movie's timeframe.)

This movie was made without any extravagant budget. The shooting was Apparently done in Israel. The Negev canyons standing in for the Kyber highlands and some of the mountains of Soviet Bloc military equipment the Israelis have liberated from the Arabs over the years seem to have been made available to the film makers. Most notably here are the five Soviet T-55 tanks. These brutes date from about mid-way through the Cold War and even though this model wasn't used in Afghanistan by the Soviets, are crucial to the success of the film. Nothing else in the world quite looks like a Soviet tank. The interiors of the tank are creepily realistic, I've had the opportunity to see the inside of a T-55 and the shots in "The Beast" brought back memories.

The script is quite good. Neither side is shown as wholly saintly or beastly. The cast is C-list and below by Hollywood standards but turns in a first-class efforts nevertheless. The actors portraying the Afghan tribesmen were particularly excellent. I was especially impressed by Shoshi Marciano playing Sherina. She is compelling as a woman driven by rage and grief to push her menfolk to wreak revenge of the beast and it's crew. A scene at the beginning where she and other village women attack the tank by beating on it with stones is striking. I even managed to suspend disbelief at the women's looks, I guess this is the Village of the Smokin' Hot Afghan Women.

The disc doesn't have any worthwhile extra content. Trailers -- for other movies. This is a shame because, for once, I would have liked to see a making-of feature. Oh well. For a movie based on was there is rather little violence. The massacre at the beginning and a few other incidents but largely this movie is an exercise in building tension than a shoot-em-up-fest. There isn't too much that will warp the kiddie's souls.

The Russians speak English and the Afghans speak Pashto (so I surmise from the end titles), so unless you're fluent in the languages of Afghanistan much of this movie experience will involve reading sub-titles. If you hate movies you have to read, you may not fully dig "The Beast". Your call...

"The Beast" is more about the personal verities of warfare than any big political issues. This is about killing and surviving. Communism is mentioned only once. Neither side really understands the other, "The Afghans are savages", "The Russians kill just to kill." Maybe at the end there is something like understanding... and maybe not.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older