Will Netflix's Big Gamble with 'Beasts of No Nation' Pay Off?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRsaclO0VbU

"Beasts of No Nation" was risky for more than just the characters in the film.

The Cary Fukunaga-directed drama, which is featured part of the Venice Film Festival, will only be airing on 29 big screens on its Oct. 16 release date. That's because its main debut will be on Netflix - a first for the on-demand media streaming giant. This has been considered a bold move for the company, which has had success with its original TV programming - with hits including "Orange Is the New Black" and "House of Cards."

In "Beasts of No Nation," an African boy Agu is recruited to join a young army after his father is murdered. Agu is forced to kill an unarmed soldier in his initiation process, and the rest of the film focuses on his decision that this dark path is what god has chosen as his way.

Critics are in awe of the film - which stars Idris Elba and newcomer Abraham Attah - praising its acting and gripping plot. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an astouding 100 percent rating, in the company of many films as of late, which have been severely panned.

"The unsentimental education of an African child soldier is captured with savage beauty and matter-of-fact horror in 'Beasts of No Nation,' a tough-minded, tough-viewing chronicle of a civil war as seen through the eyes of one of its youngest casualties ... [It's] the rare American movie to enter a distant land and emerge with a sense of lived-in human experience rather than a well-meaning Third World postcard." -- Justin Chang, Variety

The film consistently evolves from beginning to end.

"One of the many horrors of the modern world, that of child soldiers being coerced into violent combat roles by African warlords, is compellingly and convincingly dramatized in Cary Joji Fukunaga's 'Beasts of No Nation' ... Elba keeps revealing more and more layers of his troubled character, to the point where the Commandant begins to assume Shakespearean proportions as a Macbeth-like figure who may not really have what it takes to be a completely successful and enduring despot. The actor keeps pushing his characterization further and further to the rather surprising end, never taking the easy way."-- Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

Some even believe this could make the cut for an Academy Awards contender.

"Fukunaga brings flair, muscular storytelling, directness and a persuasively epic sweep to this brutal, heartrending movie about child soldiers and a civil war in an imaginary West African country, based on the 2005 novel by Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala ... This is a very powerful and confidently made movie, a film that really puts its audience through the wringer, which finally refuses any palliative gestures, with towering performances from Elba and Attah. The awards season really has begun." -- Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian