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Movies & TV

Beast

BEAST

DISCOVERY D: Tom McKeith, Sam McKeith. Australia/Philippines. 94 min. Sep 14, 9:15 pm TIFF Bell Lightbox 3 Sep 16, 6:45 pm Scotiabank 11 Sep 20, 9:15 pm Isabel Bader. See listings. Rating: NN


Australian siblings Tom and Sam McKeith went to Manila to shoot their directorial debut, a low-key study of a young boxer (Chad McKinney) who suffers a crisis of conscience after a crooked fight lands his opponent in the hospital.

The McKeiths approach Beast in the lo-fi observational style perfected by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, but haven’t understood that the Dardennes’s movies function as commentary as well as narrative, interrogating social and political issues while following a plot.

This is just a genre picture made slower and more self-consciously artful by its technique shooting the back of someone’s head isn’t all that interesting if nothing else is going on around him.

They also make the mistake of following the wrong guy through the story. The boxer’s washed-up father, played by Raising Hope’s Garret Dillahunt, cuts a far more interesting figure in just a handful of scenes.

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