First image from Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation with Idris Elba

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

While TRUE DETECTIVE fans fervently await the upcoming second season of the acclaimed HBO anthology series, they also can look forward to following the projects from their new favorite writer and director, Nic Pizzolatto and Cary Fukunaga. While Pizzolatto is assembling season 2 of the show, Fukunaga has moved on to other projects like an adaptation of Stephen King‘s IT. But, before that happens, he made a movie called BEASTS OF NO NATION starring Idris Elba.

Based on a novel by Uzodinma Iweala, BEASTS OF NO NATION was adapted by Fukunaga himself and currently has no release date. But, as you can tell from the synopsis of the book, it is a very timely story with the events currently happening across Africa.

The novel follows the journey of a young boy, Agu, who is forced to join a group of soldiers in an unnamed West African country. While Agu fears his commander and many of the men around him, his fledgling childhood has been brutally shattered by the war raging through his country, and he is at first torn between conflicting revulsion and fascination with the mechanics of war. Iweala does not shy away from explicit, visceral detail, and paints a complex, difficult picture of Agu as a child soldier.

Many have said that Idris Elba is an overrated actor and naming him for every single movie role has kind of become a recurring joke on the Internet. But, Elba is still a damn good actor, in my opinion, and can be in almost any film regardless of genre. He was good in MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM even though the film itself was fairly heavy-handed.

It is hard to judge from just one image, but that is one damn intense image. I am instantly intrigued by the talent in front and behind the camera on this one, so I will definitely be keeping an eye on BEASTS OF NO NATION for it’s eventual release.