There is a sense that Netflix is venturing into new territory with this week's release of Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation. Fukunaga, whose greatest claim to fame so far is the much lauded first season of HBO's True Detective, trains his focus on the plight of African child soldiers, measuredly delivering his message by placing us in the shoes of Agu (Abraham Attah) as he comes of age in the war-torn jungle of some anonymous country. There he falls under the spell of the charismatic Commandant (Idris Elba), a nameless fighter who resembles pretty much every megalomaniac ever. And therein lies the problem with the film.
