Beast(2022)

Plot Summary

• Poachers have just killed a pride of lions around midnight, but one escaped. 2 poachers are sent after the escaped lion to capture it and to bring it back. The poachers load the dead lions into a truck and send them away, but some stay back to rest the trap and to hunt for the escaped lion. The lion turns into a rogue man-eater and starts attacking the poachers.Recently widowed Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) and his daughters, Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), arrive at the Mopani Reserve in South Africa for a vacation. Nate and his girls live in New York, where Nate is a practicing medical professional. The only way into the park is via a chartered flight that lands on a makeshift runway in the middle of the park.Nate reunites with his old friend, Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), a biologist and Mopani manager, who introduced Nate and his wife Amalhe (Naledi Mogadime). Martin takes Nate and the girls to the village where Nate's wife grew up. Martin is the enforcer for the reserve and says that safari is big business in Africa. The group stays at Martin's place.Nate confides to Martin his guilt over being distant following his and his wife's separation, after which she developed terminal cancer. Meredith blames Nate for abandoning them when their mother was going through cancer. Nate defends himself saying that he and Amalhe agreed to separate mutually and then she got sick. And even then, he tried to take care of her, the best he could. But secretly, he admits to Martin, that he was not there for his daughters when they needed him the most. The trip is to reconnect with his daughters, who are not very happy to be dragged to a wildlife reserve in stifling heat.The next day, Martin and the family tour the reserve's restricted areas. The group leaves in Martin's station wagon, which is covered from all sides. Martin shows them a local lion pride and notices that one is injured (Martin suspects that it might be the work of poachers). This is a pride that Martin has raised since they were cubs. The area used to have a copper mine which ran dry, and all the workers eventually left, abandoning the village and the school, which served the community. Banji (Tafara Nyatsansa) is a reserve worker and tracks the movement of the pride through the reserve. Martin explains that in lions, the females do the hunting and the males protect the females from other lions. If a lion enters their territory, the males will tear them apart or will die trying. Martin says that the poachers are actively hunting lions as they sell their teeth, claws and even bones in the black market.At a nearby Tsonga community, Martin discovers most of the population is dead. Suspecting a rogue, man-killing lion is responsible, Martin rushes back to the nearest ranger's station to report the finding. Nate & Martin encounter an injured Tsonga man on the road but are unable to save him. Martin is mauled by the lion as he tracks the lion with his gun. It then ambushes Nate, who takes cover in the car. Meredith speeds the car away but crashes into a tree, stranding them.Martin radios Nate on a Walkie-talkie, warning him to stay away, saying the lion is using Martin as bait to lure the others out. As the radio is out of range to contact help, Nate assembles a tranquilizer rifle which was in the boot of the station wagon. He confronts the lion, hoping to subdue it long enough to rescue Martin and trek back to civilization.The lion attacks, and Meredith takes advantage of the distraction to save Martin. Nate is knocked off the top of the car and takes refuge under the car. As the lion attacks Nate by trying to get under the car, Norah stabs the lion with a tranquilizer dart from inside the car, after it knocks the gun from Nate's hands. This causes the lion to retreat. Meredith brings Martin back to the car, and Nate treats his wound. To the group's surprise, the lion soon returns to stalking them, seemingly unaffected by the tranquilizer.As night falls, the now-recovering Martin speculates the lion went rogue after poachers killed its pride. Soon after, the poachers arrive and initially agree to transport the group to the village in exchange for payment. Tensions rise after the poachers' spot Martin, an avid anti-poacher, inside the car.The lion attacks and scatters the poachers, killing most of them. Nate maneuvers his way past the lion and finds the poachers' truck keys. Back at the car, Martin holds the lion off long enough to allow the sisters to escape, though Meredith sustains a deep laceration to her side. The car falls into a ravine and Martin sacrifices himself by setting off an explosion from the leaking gasoline, severely burning the lion. Nate starts the truck and races away with Meredith and Norah but has to stop the car before they run out of fuel. They leave the car and walk to an abandoned schoolhouse nearby. On the way they had passed the pride of lions that Martin had raised from cubs.At the abandoned schoolhouse, which the poachers used as their base, Nate treats Meredith's wound and forages for water. The lion appears and stalks the girls, but Nate returns and scares it off. Locking his daughters inside a room, Nate promises to return after subduing the lion. After provoking the lion into chasing him, Nate lures it to the local lion pride which Martin helped raise. The rogue lion overtakes and mauls Nate, nearly killing him, until the pride males intervene and kill the rogue. A Mopani worker arrives and saves Nate as he falls unconscious.Awakening in a hospital, a recovering Nate tells his daughters he loves them. Sometime later, the three return to the preserve, this time as a united family, and recreate the photo Nate's late wife took of herself next to her favorite tree.

Storyline

• A father and his two teenage daughters find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the savanna has but one apex predator.