Wonderfully offbeat film!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I've always wondered what it is about Africa that makes it the most unstable continent on Earth. So much poverty, so much fighting. Beasts of no Nation shows why, through the eyes of a child soldier. It starts charmingly, with poor but happy children acting their age. But fast enough, Agu's world is torn apart as his family is killed or escapes to be never seen again. He is then manipulated to be a child soldier to, as he sees it, revenge those who killed his family. And at first, it looks like these are the good guys. But what this film is great at showing is that there are NO good guys. The first scene that causes us to question how different Agu's group really are is a scene in which Agu is persuaded to execute a captured enemy soldier. His acting is phenomenal here and you can tell that he will never be a child again. Then another shocker comes when the NPD, the rebel group Agu is fighting for, mercilessly and indiscriminately kills innocent villagers just like Agu's relatives. In a powerful moment he realises a woman they want to rape could easily be his mother. Yet these are all slaughtered for the crime of being at the wrong place. What makes this film even more heartbreaking is how beautiful the scenery is. The cinematography really captures this. How could something so evil happen somewhere do beautiful? The only gripe I have is with the ending. It's optimistic, which makes you feel hopeful for Agu but that doesn't mean it was the right way to go. In a more realistic scenario he would have ended up becoming a soldier like all the others, brutally murdering and raping villagers. There could have been a flash forward to an adult Agu doing this. Instead the makers chose the safer way out and had Agu rescued by the UN.Beasts of no Nation is a must-see. It makes you understand the never-ending cycle of violence happening in Africa in a distressing way, through the eyes of someone who has seen things he should never have seen and done things no child his age should ever have had to do.

This movie is EPIC. I cannot stop watching it. The mixed feelings, pain, hurt, perfect reflection of our society how did we get here?. Humans need to learn how to love one another truly. Idris is such an amazing actor the way he fits into character is indescribable...i cannot believe he didn't get an academy for this.

War drama used to exploits character to its core. By giving hard story imposed to its protagonist, the audience obliged to relates themselves by constant reminder that life is nothing but series of tragedy. Unfortunately, Beasts of no Nations are no different. Except that it offer darker tone than, -for example, City of God that also issued similar problem about child of war. Beasts of No Nations take a close look of child soldier in Africa that separated from their family in the midst of regional conflict. These child fueled by hatred, are easy pick to be trained into sudden soldier in field. They are ready to be shaped and not well adjusted to cope with trauma. This preference are proved by the scene where Commandant ordered Agu to kill a grown educated man, because he knows that the man no longer able to be manipulated and the best use of the man is only as living prove to maintain his total power.What its offer that has not yet I saw in another war drama, is the detail of soldier's inauguration, or particular rites of passage. The early shouts that made Agu stand still, yelling out his loyalty while at the same time retained his existence, are well illustrated. The rest of rites are apparent sacred, with many hint of fascism. Still, due to its based on novel from the same title, it bears portion of qualm that cannot be taken at face value. His development from child to a beast is remarkably started, not after his rites completion, but the first premature kill that defined his actual changes and shifting his moral ground. Agu's inner voice while he talk to himself by using God as instrument, is our checkpoint each time he deprived from child nature. We could see from the beginning that Agu's family is a typically moderate in term of religion which mark them as ideal family to begin with. They understand problem that lies around and acts accordingly, while still cares for others without doubt. They hold high regards of others, which placed them with better moral position from the rest. Such innocent family that deserve no place at this war. While this serves as prior motive for us to take more sentiment from the protagonist, this family-based narrative device are easily found everywhere else. The mother issue aren't resolved. It is compelling to say that the director tried to send us back to final tragedy that Agu had lost all hope of return to his old life. Yet, the final act that Agu started to make peace with himself are pretty straightforward and well closing the movie in proper manner, like the rest of its structure. Good, but not extraordinary.

The movie starts out following a typical middle-class family living in a small village in what appears to be West Africa. The movie then expands the context and shows us that the town is in the middle of a battle between the corrupt and violent United Nations backed government forces and the ragged pack of rebel fighters. As the peaceful townspeople decide to ship away women and children to allow the men to stay back and fight, there is no room for some of the younger boys, so they are also to stay behind. Agu, the film's protagonist, ends up witnessing the United Nations backed government forces senselessly execute all of his family members that remained in the village. Fortunately, Agu is able to flee these mentally disturbed, deranged, blood-thirsty, war mongering United Nations backed government forces as he runs deep into the bush.Now orphaned, Agu is on his own in the wild. It appears that he will have no chance of survival, as he can not even light himself a fire and is not sure of what he can eat. Fortunately, the story's hero, known as the "Commandant" (played by Idris Elba), has managed to save many other UN backed government created orphans. Commandant's crew of orphaned boys stumbles upon helpless little Agu. Much of the movie is related to how Commandant takes little Agu under his wing, teaches him survival, feeds him, clothes him, and allows him to exact his revenge on the evil UN backed government forces. Commandant is shown to be leading a pack of what appears to be 20 to 30 other boys and young adults, all presumably orphaned similarly to Agu and all with a thirst for revenge on those that murdered their families. Throughout the film, Commandant is first shown as a heroic warrior, then a wise leader, and then devolves into an ordinary human being. Although he is a true leader, he also answers to an authority. When he finds out that his authority cares more about political aspirations than providing justice, he tries to oust Commandant from his post. Commandant then goes rogue and takes his orphaned boy tribe with him. It is somewhat similar to Colonel Kurtz's situation in "Apocalypse Now", with the exception that Commandant does not really have a clue on how to lead a group of rogue dissidents.Ultimately, his orphans desert him due to lack of food, water, and hope. Commandant's demise can be attributed to the corrupt nature of war and the western world's political influences. Deep down, he was shown to be a genuinely good man, fighting for justice, all while being a protector and guardian of many orphaned children.Many will see this movie from a different perspective. One of the themes of the movie, which is something that plays out every day in real life, is that the subtle authoritarian rule of western governments is both the cause and solution to many of life's problems. First, they were directly responsible for the bloody and senseless murder of the families of many of these children. Secondly, as we see toward the end of the movie, these children are placed in a government-run school to learn and survive. Government creates the problems and then attempts to fix them. However, they did achieve their main goal. The villages they needed to eradicate are now gone, with all remaining residents under the guardianship of the state.This movie is a great example of how innocent lives are taken, families are destroyed, and entire communities are eliminated due to the military involvement of western societies. There is no doubt that this story is being played out for real in the Middle East and all over Africa due to both the United States' and many European countries' perpetual foreign intervention campaigns.