''The Beast'' (also known as ''The Beast of War'') is a 1988 American

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

directed by Kevin Reynolds and written by

William Mastrosimone William Mastrosimone (born August 19, 1947) is an American playwright and screenwriter from Trenton, New Jersey. He attended high school at The Pennington School and received a graduate degree in playwriting from Mason Gross School of the Arts, ...

, based on his play ''

Nanawatai Nənawā́te ( ps, ننواتې, "sanctuary") is a tenet of the Pashtunwali code of the Pashtun people. It allows a beleaguered person to enter the house of any other person and make a request of him which cannot be refused, even at the cost of the ...

''. The film follows the crew of a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

T-62 The T-62 is a Soviet main battle tank that was first introduced in 1961. As a further development of the T-55 series, the T-62 retained many similar design elements of its predecessor including low profile and thick turret armour. In contras ...

tank who became lost during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The film has enjoyed a cult-favorite status in spite of its low box office statistics.

Plot

In 1981

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

, a Soviet tank unit attacks a

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...

village harboring a group of

mujahideen ''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...

fighters. Following the assault, one of the tanks—commanded by ruthless commander Daskal—takes a wrong turn through a mountain pass and enters a

blind valley A steephead valley, steephead or blind valley is a deep, narrow, flat bottomed valley with an abrupt ending. Such closed valleys may arise in limestone or karst landscapes, where a layer of permeable rock lies above an impermeable substract such ...

. Taj returns to discover the village destroyed, and his father and brother killed—the latter by having been crushed under Daskal's tank. As the new

khan Khan may refer to: *Khan (inn), from Persian, a caravanserai or resting-place for a travelling caravan *Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name *Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by ...

following his brother's death, Taj is spurred to seek revenge and leads a band of mujahideen fighters into the valley to pursue Daskal's tank, which they call 'The Beast', counting on their captured

RPG-7 The RPG-7 (russian: link=no, РПГ-7, Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot) is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Th ...

anti-tank weapon to destroy it. Lost, isolated, and with their radio damaged in the village attack, the tank crew set out to find Kandahar Road and return to Soviet lines. While camping for the night, Afghan communist crewman Samad educates the reluctant tank driver, Konstantin Koverchenko, about the Pashtun people's code of honour, ''

Pashtunwali Pashtunwali or Pakhtunwali ( ps, پښتونولي) is the traditional lifestyle and is best described as a code of honor of the Pashtun people, by which they live. Scholars widely have interpreted it as being "the way of the Afghans" or "the code ...

''; particularly ''

nanawatai Nənawā́te ( ps, ننواتې, "sanctuary") is a tenet of the Pashtunwali code of the Pashtun people. It allows a beleaguered person to enter the house of any other person and make a request of him which cannot be refused, even at the cost of the ...

'', which requires that an enemy is to be given

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

if requested. En route, the crew suffer several setbacks and ambushes from Taj's band. Suspecting Samad to be a traitor, Daskal murders him in front of his men; Koverchenko threatens to report Daskal. At a brief stop, Koverchenko states that the tank is breaking down; Daskal accuses him of mutiny and orders gunner Kaminski and loader Golikov to tie him to a rock, and leave him with a grenade behind his head as a

booby-trap A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm or surprise a human or another animal. It is triggered by the presence or actions of the victim and sometimes has some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. The trap m ...

for the mujahideen.

Wild dog A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of ...

s eventually attack Koverchenko, but he is saved when the grenade rolls off the rock and explodes, scaring them away. Taj's band reunite with several vengeful women from the village and find Koverchenko, who pleads for ''nanawatai.'' The mujahideen give him food and shelter. Koverchenko befriends Taj after fixing the broken RPG-7 and agrees to help them destroy the tank. Meanwhile, the remaining tank crew finally realize they are trapped in the valley, until a Soviet helicopter appears and offers to rescue them. Daskal refuses the offer, has the tank refueled, and the crew heads back towards the narrow mountain pass where they entered, which the helicopter pilot says is the only way out. The crew drives through the night and find the helicopter crew dead—they drank from a waterhole unaware that the tank crew had poisoned earlier with

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

. The mujahideen and Koverchenko catch up with the tank and pursue it through the pass. Koverchenko finally fires the RPG after a tense chase, only to damage the tank's main gun. Just as it seems the tank will escape, the village women use explosives to blow up the cliff-side, dropping boulders onto the tank and disabling it. Koverchenko sets fire to the tank's leaked fuel, forcing the crew to bail; he pleads ''nanawatai'' on their behalf, and Taj reluctantly agrees. Koverchenko confronts Daskal over his brutality, and declares he hopes that he lives to see the Soviets lose the war. Kaminski and Golikov flee on foot, but Daskal is chased down by the village women and murdered; they bring back his bloodied uniform to Taj as a trophy. Horrified, Koverchenko waves down an arriving Soviet helicopter to be rescued. Koverchenko salutes Taj as he is hoisted by a harness, brandishing a jezail musket Taj had gifted to him. The film ends with Koverchenko flying off with the helicopter over the Afghan landscape.

Cast

George Dzundza George Dzundza ( ; born July 19, 1945) is an American television and film actor. Early life and education Dzundza was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Ukrainian-Jewish father, Roman Dzundza, originally from Kalush, Ukraine, and a Polish-Jewish m ...

as Commander 'Tank Boy' Daskal * Jason Patric as Konstantin Koverchenko *

Steven Bauer Steven Bauer (born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson; December 2, 1956) is a Cuban-born American actor. Bauer began his career on PBS, portraying Joe Peña, the son of Cuban immigrants on ''¿Qué Pasa, USA?'' (1977–1980) and is perhaps most ...

as Khan Taj * Erick Avari as Samad *

Stephen Baldwin Stephen Andrew Baldwin (born May 12, 1966) is an American actor, producer and director. He has appeared in the films '' Born on the Fourth of July'' (1989), '' Posse'' (1993), '' 8 Seconds'' (1994), ''Threesome'' (1994), ''The Usual Suspects'' ...

as Anatoli Golikov *

Donald Patrick Harvey Donald Patrick Harvey II (born May 31, 1960) is an American actor. Early life Harvey was born and raised in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, the sixth of eight children. He started acting while attending Lake Shore High School, having performed in sev ...

as Kaminski * David Sherrill as Kovolov *

Kabir Bedi Kabir Bedi ( pa, ਕਬੀਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਬੇਦੀ; born 16 January 1946) is an Indian actor. His career has spanned three continents covering India, the United States and especially Italy among other European countries in three media: fi ...

as Akbar * Chaim Jeraffi as Moustafa * Shoshi Marciano as Sherina * Yitzhak Ne'eman as Iskandar * Roberto Pollack as Shahzaman * Avi Gilor as Khahzaman * Beni Baruchin as Afzal * Victor Ken as Ali * Avi Keedar as Noor * Claude Aviram as Sadioue * Moshe Vapnik as Hasan *

Dale Dye Dale Adam Dye Jr. (born October 8, 1944) is an American actor, technical advisor, radio personality and writer. A decorated Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, Dye is the founder and head of Warriors, Inc., a technical advisory company specializi ...

as Helicopter Crew Chief (uncredited)

Production

Filming

The film was shot in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Several actual

T-55 The T-54 and T-55 tanks are a series of Soviet main battle tanks introduced in the years following the Second World War. The first T-54 prototype was completed at Nizhny Tagil by the end of 1945.Steven Zaloga, T-54 and T-55 Main Battle Tank ...

tanks were used in the film; however, the helicopter used in the film was not a real Mi-8, but an Aerospatiale SA.321 Super Frelon. The tank in question in the movie is actually an Israeli modification of a Soviet T-55 captured by the Israelis from their Arab armies, redesignated as the Ti-67 and fitted with a 105mm main gun in place of the original 100mm gun, leading some to mistake it for a

. Many of these conversions were used by the Israelis during the 1973

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by E ...

. The film's military advisor,

, has written that he negotiated the purchase of the tanks over drinks with

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

officers in a

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

hotel. The language spoken by the Afghan characters is

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

. The Pashto dialogue is

subtitled Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

but some television screenings have omitted the subtitles.

Music

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack music was released by CBS/Columbia Records shortly after the movie's debut, written and performed entirely by

Mark Isham Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and film composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a film composer, having worked on numerous films and ...

. The back of the album suggests two tracks ("Badal" and "Nanawatai"), but there are, in fact, ten. Offered in 12-inch LP vinyl, CrO2 cassette and DDD-format compact discs. Used CD copies command rather high prices since limited numbers were released in spite of composer

's celebrity status. In addition to the soundtrack, the song ''Троллейбус'' ("

Trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

") by the Russian rock band

Kino Kino may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters * KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S. * Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station * KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel Fictional entiti ...

is heard playing on the radio during a scene. However, ''Троллейбус'' was not released until 1983, two years after the events portrayed in the movie. The song was titled ''Streetcar Headed East'' in English-speaking countries.

References

External links

* * *
Notes on the production from military advisor Dale Dye
broken link {{DEFAULTSORT:Beast, The 1988 films 1980s war films American war adventure films American war drama films War epic films 1980s English-language films Pashto-language films Cold War films American films based on plays Films about armoured warfare Soviet–Afghan War films Fiction about tanks Films directed by Kevin Reynolds Films set in Afghanistan Films shot in Afghanistan Films shot in Israel Films scored by Mark Isham American anti-communist propaganda films 1980s American films