Agu (Abraham Attah) is a young lad growing up in impoverished western Africa. He lives a somewhat idyllic life under the circumstances. The film builds his family life in the background involving a war zone between the army and rebels. Through a series of circumstances, the army kills his kinsmen and Agu manages to escape and reluctantly joins forces with the rebels and vows revenge. Agu has some first person narrative. He struggles with cultic aspects of the rebel army and battalion leader. He discovers they have no respect for life, but he has no alternative and curses the sun for shining on him. He realizes with death all around him, he has been robbed of his childhood, perhaps with thoughts and language well beyond his years. This is not a story of hope or despair. It is a drama about life, a life that doesn't have a Hollywood ending or twist. Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity. English subtitles in places. I would recommend watching the film with the subtitles as the English is difficult to understand at times.

I watched this on Netflix (where it exclusively available). It's the story of a child soldier fighting a civil war in an unnamed African country (filmed in Ghana). It's terrific. It features two wonderful performances. One from Idris Elba, as the commander of the boy soldiers, transforming them from children to killers; he's terrifyingly charismatic, and really makes you believe the relationship between him and his chargers. The second is from Abraham Attah as the boy at the heart of it all, taking us on a mesmeric and heartbreaking journey. Horrifying as it is, we are spared many of the real horrors of war whilst still letting us feel the impact of the atrocities on both victims and perpetrators. The cinematography brings the colours of the bush to life, the dust almost seeping under your fingernails as you watch; the music is beautiful and, along with the almost at times poetic script, this both offsets and points up the horror of events portrayed. It's a brilliant and urgent film, without a white saviour in sight, which Netflix (who put up the money for the production when it was threatened with going under) are to be commended for taking a risk on it. The reasons for it being overlooked in awards is obvious and twofold - endemic racism in the film industry and fear of the future as a streaming service trumps the film's very limited cinema release. If you have Netflix, search it out; if you don't, it's one of many good reasons to fork out for a subscription.

I was wavering on rating this film 6 or 7. It had the potential to be a 9 or 10, and based on all the hype and netflix trailers, I hoped that it would be.There are plenty of brutal and heart-wrenching moments, and Idris Elba is a talented actor that I enjoyed as the warlord molding the kid army. However, I feel that there is some confusion and missing holes in this film, that somehow leave it disjointed. It seems to slow down half- way through, and missed out on designing a more powerful narrative and explanation for many of the things going on. In the end, it comes across as an overly-long war film, that just portrays the same things that many already know or believe about African war zones. I thought Blood Diamond did more to explain situations and build characters, while giving a greater understanding of the situation. There are some good character developments, as the boy becomes desensitized to violence and insanity around him, and some entertaining and intense moments, but it just doesn't match the exquisite film-making of other films on such subjects, or war films in general.I felt lost and kind of bored throughout the last half of the film, and found myself distracted and eating snacks, about to doze off for an afternoon nap. It needs something more!!!

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.