How come I'd never heard of this movie. It was far better than many of the Iraq war movies coming out as of late. The Russians vs. Mujheednan plot is simply a devise: THE BEAST is better described as battle of minds within a war, i.e., more of a human drama. Not to say that many of the plot devices were not not deftly taken from the Afghan War's particular circumstances. Could've been more neatly pulled off in about 15 minutes less time. Also, while I can appreciate the use of unaccented English for foreign characters in many films (particularly Nazi ones, where German accent's sort of demonize them) in this case I think Russian accents (or Russian actors with subtitling) would've been more effective. Hard to say why but I think the plain spoken English made GI's out of the tank crew.
But overall a lot of fun for two hours, if a somewhat predictable ending.
But overall a lot of fun for two hours, if a somewhat predictable ending.