This is what you call a Vegetable Movie

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2015)

Netflix's first original film "Beasts of No Nation" explores the horrors of child soldiers in an unnamed African country. The film is akin to disturbing historical dramas like "Schindler's List" and "12 Years a Slave" by its bleak mood, horrific realism, and its matured, well handled filmmaking. Given the film's somber and depressing tone, you could expect this film to thoroughly intrigue yet mildly entertain. However, the film is well made but mostly feels repetitive, boring, and hollow with little payoff making it a vegetable movie.
The film featured some impressive filmmaking but lacked some kind of spark in the story. The story felt so gloomy that it seemed near impossible to actually get enjoyment out of it unless you are some kind of sociopath. The action sequences were shot strangely so you could not really tell who was who or even what was going on. Many moments and scenes seemed redundant and directionless. For example the child soldiers lead by Idris Elba's Commandant would attack villages and kill those who they saw as enemies. This is basically all that happened throughout the entire movie! It is all the same thing without proper pacing in the story, substance in the supporting characters, and maybe most importantly nothing innovative and thought provoking to say about the current situation of child soldiers. All these flaws are noticeable at the even more frustrating ending that mounted to nothing! So basically this movie is mostly dull with little to no entertaining moments.
However there were some silver linings to this movie. The acting was great with some very believable characters particularly Idris Elba's Commandant. Also to mention Abraham Attah, who played Agu, did a fine job portraying Agu though Idris Elba did steal the show from him. The sets and special effects were superb given the lower budget of the film. The sets seemed extremely accurate to African terrain. The writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who directed season one of "True Detective," did a solid job of writing and directing; although it did not reach the same heights as "True Detective." Basically, this movie was well made and did not have any dumb generic clichés most Hollywood movies suffer from. In a nutshell, the film is intelligent and Fukunaga handled the material respectfully.
So how exactly did the term vegetable movie come about? Well what it basically means is that the movie was good but not entertaining. It was an important informative movie that recycled a disturbing message on child soldiers by showing people the horrors that occur today. Yet at the same time the movie failed to entertain, which you could make an argument for that the number one job of a movie is to entertain. So just like vegetables, which are good for you but not well liked amongst teenagers, "Beasts of No Nation" is a good movie for someone to watch to learn from. Yet at the same time it will not entertain. If you want to be informed and entertained, some movies similar to this one that are more compelling are "Blood Diamond," "Black Hawk Down," and even "Captain Phillips."