Mark Reviews Movies: AMONG THE BEASTS

Among the Beasts, Gravitas Ventures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 9, 2023

Here's what should be a breakthrough performance for Tory Kittles, an actor who might be familiar to some from roles on television and some smaller roles in movies. In Among the Beasts, the actor plays a military veteran with a shadowy past, a certain set of skills, and determination to find the daughter of the man whose death has filled him with so much regret, guilt, and pain.

If that sounds like the foundation for a generic action movie, it very well could have been, except that writer/director Matthew Newton cares more about his characters than chases or fistfights or shootouts. In Kittles, too, the filmmaker has found just the right actor to communicate the kind of composed intensity that this film is attempting to channel.

Kittles plays a man referred to only as LT, probably because of his previous rank and since the few people with whom he spends time are former squad mates. The most notable exception is 12-year-old Kayla (Mia Mei Williamson), whom he treats as family. That was the promise he made the girl's father, after all, whose death in Afghanistan still haunts him.

The plot seems to begin when Kayla goes missing—apparently abducted outside a bar. There are no clues and no witnesses, and if a brief but intense fight at that bar seems to be moving this material in one direction, Newton stops that line of thinking in its tracks. Suddenly, it's a year later, and the girl is still missing, while LT stews in remorse and contemplates suicide. It's only another abduction of a 12-year-old girl—the cousin of Lola (Libe Barer), a local mob boss leader's daughter—and the possibility of a connection that give LT a renewed sense of purpose.

As for the rest of the plot, it follows LT, Lola, and her boyfriend AJ (Sarunas J. Jackson) tracking down the cousin, of course, but any time that story starts toward or teases the potential for some action, Newton doesn't give into temptation. One foot chase results in a rather amusing argument between Lola and some local criminals who don't know her connections. The only lead to the case can be followed, in LT's mind, by torturing Nathan (Jon Bass), who may have kidnapped the girl or may just have a van that looks like the one belonging to the real abductor (The way LT describes what will happen if it's the latter is haunting in its straightforwardness).

The film is spare and considered in a way that emphasizes both the moral morass of this situation and the desperation of its characters—for answers and for some sense of redemption. Among the Beasts does move toward a standard standoff (although it's played as a battle of wits and a stealthy rescue, which is mostly jeopardized by the heightened emotions of the scenario), but because of Newton's expectation-breaking storytelling and Kittles' committed performance, the film earns it.

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