LOS ANGELES, Sept. 22 (UPI) — Heart of the Beast, in theaters Friday, is a classical tale of man against nature. There’s a little man against beast too but one beast in particular is the heroic co-star.

James (Brad Pitt) and his dog Cody are military veterans, now traveling by seaplane in Alaska. When James suffers a heart attack midair, the plane goes down 58 miles from the nearest road.

It’s not The Revenant, but Heart of the Beast depicts the treacherous terrain James and Cody must cross to reach help. Director David Ayer portrays the natural obstacles they must traverse vividly.

First, James has to recover their supplies from the submerged plane underwater. Even solid ground is slippery.

A log felled over raging rapids is much more difficult, and James getting across is only half of the task. He has to go back to help Cody over, and Cody has four feet that could slip.

Cody and James encounter a bear and a pack of wolves during their trek. James aims to avoid confrontation, but wild animals don’t always comply.

James’ heart keeps acting up, making even simple tasks more difficult. There are some graphic injuries, but James is more frustrated that he created another problem to solve than any pain they cause. Cody helps him reset a protruding bone.

Even considering those wounds, Heart of the Beast is easily the gentlest movie Ayer has ever made. Instead of cops and criminals, it is an emotionally resonant portrayal of two characters caring for each other, even if only one of them is human.

Cody has post-traumatic stress dreams from his military service, which also left him with titanium teeth and one prosthetic leg. James has battle scars too but is sensitive to prioritize Cody’s trauma over his own.

For a movie set in nature, the digital effects work is glaring. No one expects Pitt to fall into the rapids, but a stuntman should. That shot is eerily reminiscent of a similarly unconvincing shot of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a river in Collateral Damage 25 years ago.

At least they filmed in the wilderness, though. It was New Zealand, not Alaska, but still the real woods. And the four dogs who played Odin are real.

While Heart of the Beast doesn’t rank amongst the best wilderness survival movies, it is a respectable entry in the genre. The canine performances overcome any shortcuts taken by the human filmmakers.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.