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'Beasts' a wakeup call about violence against children

Writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga's gut-wrenching Netflix war drama "Beasts of No Nation" chronicles with blunt and chilling realism the high costs of conflict - not financial ones, but the even higher costs of a child's humanity.

Based on Uzodinma Iweala's 2005 debut novel, "Beasts of No Nation" runs too long at 131 minutes to sustain its ferocious momentum and meticulously crafted, unvarnished depiction of real-life horror.

But for a long time, the movie swallows us up in the experiences of Agu (Ghanaian actor Abraham Attah), a happy young boy with a noble teacher dad, loving mother and cocky adolescent older brother living in a West African village.

One day, government troops round up the frightened villagers and execute them as spies, among them Agu's dad and brother. Agu escapes, only to become one of many child fighters under the command of a charismatic warlord known as the Commandant (Idris Elba, the only name actor in the cast).

"I'm a good boy from a good family," Agu reminds us and himself in voice-over narration, mimicking the first-person style of Iweala's prose. (Fukunaga commendably tells this story mostly through Agu's perspective, personalizing the character's experiences.)

This sets us up for the movie's most disturbing scene in which the relatively innocent Agu must execute a man by using a machete. "I am an engineer, not a soldier!" he shouts, begging for his life. But Agu knows this is a test. And he has seen the throats of his peers cut for failing the Commandant's tests.

Fukunaga, the versatile filmmaker behind the Mexican gang drama "Sin nombre" and the Victorian novel-inspired "Jane Eyre," soft-sells the Commandant's sexual abuse of an unsuspecting Agu. (Apparently, such scenes are less commercially attractive than ones depicting graphic violence.)

Elba brings more dimension and depth to his Commandant than we expect, portraying his rebel leader not as simple synthesized evil, but as a 21st-century Fagin, instructing his youthful followers in the fine art of committing war crimes for his own benefit.

If Agu serves as the Oliver Twist of the story, then his fellow child soldier Strika (played by Emmanuel "King Kong" Nii Adom Quaye) might be the Artful Dodger.

The raw realism of "Beasts of No Nation" falls upon the small shoulders of young Attah, whose first movie performance is steeped in pensive soulfulness. His journey from playful kid to world-weary military murderer is a spiritual slap to the conscience.

And it wakes us up, brutally.

"Beasts of No Nation" opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. Also available for streaming on Netflix. Not rated: contains drug use, coarse language, sexual situations, violence. 131 minutes. <span class="stars"></span><span class="stars"> </span><span class="stars"></span><span class="stars"> </span><span class="stars"> </span><span class="stars">½</span>

“Beasts of No Nation”

★ ★ ★ ½

Opens at the Century Centre in Chicago. Also available for streaming on Netflix. Not rated: contains drug use, coarse language, sexual situations, violence. 131 minutes.

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