Episode 9. The Beast of War (Kevin Reynolds, 1988)

Tanks for listening

In this instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcast, Ady, Peter and Paul discuss Kevin Reynold’s 1988 war film The Beast of War, aka The Beast, based on the play Nanawatai by William Mastrosimone

Topics discussed in this episode include: the films of Kevin Reynolds; the work of playwright William Mastrosimone, and his research in writing the play ‘Nanawatai’ on which The Beast of War is passed; stage-to-screen adaptations; Mitchell and Webb’s ‘Are we the bad guys?’ sketch; the David and Goliath story; a film about Vietnam but set in Afghanistan; a Western in modern dress; realism in language; Russians speaking with American accents; subtitles or not for Pashtun dialogue; American films of the 1980s about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Paul outing himself as a monstrous raging cinephile (and seeing no shame in this).

Please note that unfortunately, we experienced some technical issues in the recording of this podcast. This resulted in some mental confusion (what’s new, I hear you say) and a couple of abrupt edits. We apologise for this.