‘Beasts of No Nation’

Film Review by The Peoples Minister of Information JR

“Beasts of No Nation” is a Netflix film that crudely exposes the face of the wars in Africa and the false poverty that has been created by U.S. and other Western imperialist governments spearheading a corporate plan to rob the richest continent on earth of its natural resources.

It is the tale of a little boy in an unnamed African country. The boy, played by Abraham Attah, is orphaned when he is left with his father in the war zone after his mother and young siblings flee. The boy’s father becomes a casualty of the war.

A short while after he was orphaned, a rebel guerrilla army led by the character played by Idris Elba stumbles upon him in the bush. The non-romantic brutality of war is captured in the many battles fought by the very brave but misled child and young soldiers. The film deals boldly with the psychological aspects of brainwashing and propaganda in war.

“Beasts of No Nation” was based on a novel by Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala. I did not read the book so I cannot compare the two.

I don’t know whether to be more upset at Idris Elba, who accepted the role of a pedophile raping his own soldiers for imperialism or myself for thinking that Idris Elba may use the platform to say something about the world order that has crushed over 6 million people in the Congo in ordeals like the one depicted in the film so that Apple, Microsoft, Dell and the rest of the computer industry can steal coltan and other minerals at the cheapest price possible utilizing proxy armies and governments from nations like Uganda, Rwanda and rebel forces in the Congo to do it.

“Beasts of No Nation” is a Netflix film that crudely exposes the face of the wars in Africa and the false poverty that has been created by U.S. and other Western imperialist governments spearheading a corporate plan to rob the richest continent on earth of its natural resources.

The same situation is going on all over Africa, Latin America and Asia in the diamond and oil rich regions and areas filled with other natural resources that the corporate elite and banksters want.

The more I write, the more I wonder why did I expect Elba to use the platform to say something bigger? In what role has he stood for something? He didn’t stand for anything but a stereotypical drug dealing businessman in “The Wire” and a thinly cloaked propaganda puppet for the U.S. military in the Avenger movie that came out earlier this year.

He was applauded by some in the mainstream for playing Nelson Mandela in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” In order to understand why big movies are made about this man, we have to understand who Nelson Mandela turned out to be toward the end of his life.

Although Mandela was an African National Congress political prisoner in South Africa for the same amount of time as the late Black Panther Geronimo Ji Jaga, 27 years, when he was released and almost immediately became the president of South Africa, he effectively absolved his country’s colonial enemies of genocidal murder with his Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Why would a dignified Black person who knows the history treat this man as a hero to African people? The white elite and bankers who still run South Africa behind a small Black political class mourned him when he passed.

From a political cinematic standpoint, “Beasts of No Nation” follows the same road as many Black targeted Hollywood funded films do, when they effeminized the two most dominant Black males in the film. There was no surprise there. It reminds me of the Madea films, Lee Daniels’ “Empire,” and Shawn and Marlon Wayans in numerous roles.

From an internationalist political standpoint, I would like to hear more stories like “Beast of No Nation” that use the words capitalist, imperialism, world order, the West, Britain, the U.S., Israel, France, Canada, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Germany, colonial masters and the like. Director Cary Fukunaga missed a prime opportunity that could have helped his movie stand out from being just another child-soldier-in-Africa movie to being a progressive classic.

From a political cinematic standpoint, “Beasts of No Nation” follows the same road as many Black targeted Hollywood funded films do.

Otherwise the film is aesthetically beautifully shot. It is well written with the exception of what I have already mentioned. The acting was superb and captured the complex closeness and distance that the child soldiers had to have to survive in an environment where you are stripped of everything they love and trained to fight to literally survive and for a bit of sick glory, a result of brainwashing.

I would give this movie a C+. If you are an Elba fan, you may like the film because you are not used to seeing him play pro-Black characters in movies. I think movies like “Bandit Queen,” “Sankofa,” “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” “The Battle of Algiers,” “Njinga: Queen of Angola,” “Django” and “Operation Small Axe” reflect more of what I believe we should be watching and making. And these are the standard that I hold up as the benchmark to Black film making in the U.S.

To put it into a sentence, I would not have been thrilled if I’d had to pay to watch the disturbing drama, “Beasts of No Nation.” For free, it’s still disturbing, but well written otherwise and beautifully shot as well.

The People’s Minister of Information JR Valrey is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and “Unfinished Business: Block Reportin’ 2” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe” and “Block Reportin’ 101,” available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He can be reached at [email protected].