Brad Pitt plays a retired special forces veteran stranded with his service dog in the Alaskan wilderness in Heart of the Beast, a survivalist drama directed by David Ayer and written by Cameron Alexander.

The film reunites Pitt with Ayer for the first time since their 2014 second world war action thriller Fury. Pitt's character, Belmont, is tough, self-reliant and laconically good-humoured in what the Guardian's review identifies as the classic Pitt manner. He spends his retirement roaming remote Alaska in his seaplane, accompanied by his service dog Odin — nicknamed Odey — played by four different German shepherds.

Odin saw combat alongside Belmont in what the review describes as fuzzily imagined flashback sequences, and the dog has now joined his handler in retirement as his best and only pal. Whether Belmont ever had a human partner is never revealed, the review notes.

The Guardian's critic frames the film as an anthro-canine-mance, with man and dog relating to each other on a deep level — comparing it to Owen Wilson in Marley & Me, "only without Jennifer Aniston, or Bernie Winters and Schnorbitz, only without the devastating melancholy."

The review also reads the film's title as a deliberate signal of its dual ambitions: the first and last words of the title have been carefully chosen to indicate a mix of sentimentality and thrills. The critic detects hints of Jack London in the material, positioning the film as a wilderness adventure in that tradition.

The verdict is measured. The Guardian calls Heart of the Beast a serviceable adventure and an entertaining entry in the man-and-dog genre, though the review's headline — promising "wilderness with side of cheese" — signals that the sentimentality runs thick. Pitt carries the film as a lone survivalist in the mode of his earlier action roles, with Odin providing both companionship and narrative stakes.

Audiences can judge the chemistry for themselves when the film reaches cinemas, where Pitt's return to the survival genre — and Ayer's reunion with his Fury star — will test whether one man and his dog can carry a feature-length wilderness story.