Hunter Killer

Rated: MA15+Hunter Killer

Directed by: Donovan Marsh

Screenplay by: Arne L. Schmidt and Jamie Moss

Based on: The Novel “Firing Point” written by George Wallace and Don Keith

Produced by: Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Tucker Tooley, Mark Gill, John Thompson, Matt O’Toole, Les Weldon

Starring: Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common, Linda Cardellini, Michael Nyqvist and Toby Stephens.

HUNTER KILLER ( hən(t)ərˈkilər ): a naval vessel, especially a submarine, equipped to locate and destroy enemy vessels, especially other submarines.

Based on the book, “Firing Point” written by George Wallace (retired commander of the nuclear attack submarine, USS Houston), and award-winning journalist, Don Keith, Hunter Killer has action above and below the water.

Russian and American submarines play cat and mouse under the heaving Barents Sea; the Americans ghosting a Russian sub when they watch it being blown to pieces.

The Cold War may have ceased above ground, but below the surface of the ocean, torpedos are incoming.

When the American sub goes off-radar, the Brass above ground, trigger-happy Admiral Charles Donnegan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gary Oldman) and the more cautious Rear Admiral John Fisk (Common) along with senior National Security Agency analyst Jayne Norquist (Linda Cardellini), send the only Hunter Killer they have nearby, the USS Arkansas: enter ‘pride runs deep’ Captain Joe Glass (Gerard Butler).

When the USS Arkansas crew discover they’ve just sailed into a coup with Russian President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) held captive by Admiral Dmitri Durov (Michael Gor) gone rogue, it’s a high-stakes play to extract the president from Russian soil without starting WWIII.

Riding the helm, director, Donovan Marsh (iNumber, Number (2017)) uses three threads to tell the story: the convert battle from the sub, the Black Ops team on the ground and the tension in the War Room; a successful technique condensing a complicated military novel into a comprehensive film.

Yet unable to resist that action military cheese that dominates this genre, the screenwriters throw in lines like, ‘We’re not enemies, we’re brothers’, from Glass.

And you can just see it, the Gary Oldman character Admiral Charles Donnegan stating, ‘When someone makes a move on a chessboard, you respond.’

So, there’s that.

And the shifting of the Russians speaking their native language to then speak English, to each other when really, they’d be speaking Russian, constantly jolted me out of that suspension of reality.

Sticking to Russian with English subtitles would have given the film more authenticity and impact.  A shame because there’s so much effort with the detail of the sub, Marsh placing the film’s entire submarine set on a massive hydraulic gimbal to forge realistic movement.  And the U.S. Navy contributing and advising through-out to get the details as close to the real deal as possible.  To have all that effect taken away by a few pieces of dialogue was disappointing.

I will say that although there were cheesy moments with the brothers-in-arms rhetoric, Gerard Butler brings it in a role more subdued, yet quietly still the man of action Captain.  And Michael Nyqvist as the Russian counter-part, Captain Andropov, added to the tone of brave men making life and death decisions.

Rest In Peace Michael Nyqvist who passed away in June 2017.

And wow, the action and suspense really ramps-up as the story of the film builds.

Overall, not the best I’ve seen in the genre but the suspense and action make Hunter Killer worth a watch.

Charming

Rated: GCharming

Written and directed by: Ross Venokur

Produced by: John H. Williams

Music by: Tom Howe

Starring: Demi Lovato, Wilmer Valderrama, Sia, Ashley Tisdale, Avril Lavigne, G. E. M., Nia Vardalos, with Chris Harrison and John Cleese.

While writer and director Ross Venokur read fairy tales to his three daughters over the years, they came to realise Prince Charming gets around.  Think about it: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… They’re all saved by the same guy.  They all fall for, Prince Charming.

In Charming, Venokur has turned the fairy tale around so it’s the Prince who’s cursed: there is such as thing as being too charming.  How is Prince Philippe Charming (Wilmer Valderrama) supposed to know whether it’s the curse or true love when all women are charmed by him?

Cursed by Nemeny Neverwish (Nia Vardalos), a scorned woman turned witch, Prince Charming must find true love before his twenty-first birthday to lift the curse of his charm.  If he doesn’t then all love will disappear from the kingdom.

Like his father and his grandfather, Prince Charming must complete the gauntlet; a journey of self-discovery and manhood while besting the unbeatable beast, escaping giant women cannibals, and most importantly taking a leap of faith to find his true love.

It’s only with the help of a rouge thief, Lenny while disguised as a man of the world but really Lenore Quinone (Demi Lovato), a girl who grew up on the seas, who has locked her heart away for good.  It’s only with her survival skills at the price of three fortunes in gold that the pampered, never-had-to-lift-his-charmed-finger-to-do-anything, has Charming any chance of completing the gauntlet.  Let alone find true love.

It’s lucky Lenore is immune to his charms, otherwise the quest would never have had a chance.  Nor the story.

Not that I was charmed by this film.

It was all a little pre-teen for me.  Complete with girl-band music for the soundtrack that I found difficult to believe the characters were singing.

And the story was stretched beyond believability, even for a fairy tale animation with Lenore jailed for her thievery to suddenly be offered three fortunes to get Prince Charming through the gauntlet!?

And Lenore putting on a baker’s hat was enough of a disguise to be mistaken for the short and fat baker?

And fake moustache and hat makes you look like a boy?

Well, yeah, I guess.  But not really.

I was however, charmed by details like the kingdom billboard advertising a lawnmower with a picture of a sheep and Charming offering Lenore’s partner-in-crime AKA a chirpy red bird a roasted pigeon leg.

And the animation was fluid with colours, my favourite scene when the two explorers enter an enchanted forest with vines reaching out with hands.

But the soundtrack and taking the leap-of-faith romance was directed at a younger audience who may be able to look past those stretches of narrative that made me roll my eyes because, as if!

Backtrack Boys

Rated: MA15+Backtrack Boys

Directed, Produced and Written by: Catherine Scott

Consultant Producer: Madeleine Hetherton

Cinematographer: Catherine Scott

Composers: Kristin Rule, Jonathan Zwartz.

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Sydney Film Festival

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Melbourne International Film Festival

Filmed over two years, Backtrack Boys is an observational documentary about Founder and CEO, Bernie Shakeshaft and his unique outreach program to help young kids to:

Stay alive

Stay out of jail

And to chase their hopes and dreams.

I was thoroughly charmed by this film – writer, director and cinematographer Catherine Scott allowing the story to speak for itself.

Growing up in the Northern Territory, Bernie was taught how to track dingos by Indigenous trackers from Tennent Creek.

Rather than tracking dingos from behind, chasing them, they taught Bernie to backtrack, to observe their behaviour to see where they’d been to see where they’d be tomorrow.

Bernie reckons they weren’t teaching him how to catch wild dogs but how to catch wild kids.

His outreach program is unique in that it’s all about giving board to young people, who’ve had trouble with the law and at home, to stay and train the many dogs on his property to become dog jumpers.  Each kid is given a dog to train, or rather, the dog picks them: dogs don’t judge, they just keep coming back again and again.

I would have thought the group of mischievous kids would have hammed it up for the camera, unable to handle being filmed.  But there’s a genuine insight captured here that tells of a level of comfort and openness with film maker, Catherine Scott, that allows us to see into this fragile world of rehabilitation as the kids open their hearts to Bernie and the volunteers; to struggle with anger and hurt and disappointments, and the consequences of lashing out.

Although the film could be used for teaching youth workers, I didn’t feel like I was under instruction – it was all about meeting the kids: Zac, Russell, Alfie, Sindi.  And to be taken on a journey as they figure out their path in life.

Gentle and matter-of-fact Bernie, who states, ‘I’ve spent so much time with dogs that I think more like a dog than I think like a person’, is able to calm the kids to see reason so we’re shown moments like Zac sharing as they’re sitting around the camp fire that he wants to leave the world with no regrets; no hate in his heart.

We’re taken from the out-skirts of Armidale in New South Wales where Backtrack Boys is set-up surrounded by green paddocks with grazing sheep and horses, to country shows including the Wellington show where the boys show off the dogs’ jumping skills, and their own.  To the detention centre where Tyrson’s waiting to get out and back on track again; to parliament and putting on a show at Government House; to Russell’s fear of going to court to face charges and the uncertainty of whether he’ll walk out again.

Seemingly simple, the film is a series of moments, as we’re shown what the quiet observer sees – the rewards of Bernie’s hard work with Rusty, wild and swearing and chewing gum in the morning to him later organising the bathroom and noting the need for more toothpaste after brushing his teeth.

It’s a sad and realistic documentary, making any break-through and win all the more sweet.

Halloween

Rated: MA15+Halloween

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Written by: David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley

Based on Characters Created by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Produced by: Jason Blum, Malek Akkad, Bill Block

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton, Nick Castle, Andi Matichak, Omar J. Dorsey.

A continuation of the first Halloween (1978), serial killer Michael Myers (Nick Castle), the boogie man, remains behind the walls of Smith Grove Sanatorium.

He doesn’t speak; he’s The Shape.  Without reason he is the ultimate human monster.

And forty years after her last encounter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), now a grandmother (to Allyson (Andi Matichak)), knows he’s a monster.  She has sacrificed her life, losing her daughter (Karen (Judy Greer)) to social services because of her obsession to prepare as she waits and hopes for his release… so she can kill him.

There’s not much more to the story: the monster, the victim turned heroin, the mask.

Director and co-writer David Gordon Green isn’t known for working in horror.  Yet he’s successfully kept the re-boot of this thriller simple yet effective in the telling.

There’s an echo from the original Halloween that gives that 70s tone with the same synth soundtrack and font for title and credits.  It feels like the same film but brought forward in time with a story-line with details giving the film a surprising sharp edge (ha, ha): it’s violent and bloody without getting over cheesy with too much gore.

There’s clever editing and careful shooting never slowing the monster; and a sometime focus on the eyes of the stalked without too much drama.  Just some good old fashion knife-in-the-neck, head stomping, hanging-from-a-wrought-iron-fence-by-the-head horror.

John Carpenter states, ‘I’m excited for audiences to see this.  It is going to scare the shit out of you.  I guarantee it.’

The monster behind the mask is scary because his face is never shown, he’s a mystery.  I still don’t understand why he’s evil and the film doesn’t explore the depths of his psyche, just the statement that fifty clinical psychiatrists assessing Michael each reached different conclusions.

It’s the way the film is shown that’s interesting and the intensity is relieved with some good humour like Michael’s current and long-term psychiatrist Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) being told to sit still after his patient escapes, ‘I am sitting still, what are you saying?’

And the little dude, Julian (Jibrail Nantambu) being baby-sat (of course) a classic, wanting to be the pretty babysitter’s favourite with some fun dialogue from the writers that I always appreciate in a good slasher movie.

Yet more importantly, there’s a careful piecing together of moments that gives the film a solid driving undercurrent with the relentless pursuit of the masked monster and the equally resilient Laurie Strode determined to exterminate what she can see is pure evil.

Nothing really new with a simple story, yet the blunt and bold telling made me feel like I was re-watching a classic made new.

Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

Rated: MWestwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

Directed by: Lorna Tucker

Edited by: Paul Carlin

Produced by: Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott, John Battsek

Starring: Vivivenne Westwood, Andreas Kronthaler, Kate Moss.

Throughout her long career, avant garde fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood has been a giant safety pin digging into the side of the British establishment.

From the first little backroom shop in the King’s Road that she shared with Malcolm McLaren selling records (him) and clothing (her), Westwood claims to have invented punk, with McLaren managing (or perhaps mismanaging) the Sex Pistols and Westwood responsible for the punk aesthetic.

She has often described herself as a woman on a mission and, in the 1970s, the mission was to confront the establishment through sex. Pronouncing England as the home of the flasher, Westwood designed a line of rubber wear for the office to sell from their shop now flagrantly rebranded SEX in huge, hot pink letters.

Her designs from that time onwards have become no less confrontational, from the 1976 Destroy tee shirt calling out the establishment as fascists to the 2003 show where she sent her male models down the runway wearing fake breasts over their polo necks. Believing that clothes are deeply emotional, Westwood creates clothing, ‘to face the world in a spectacular way’, as with supermodel Carla Bruni’s 1994 appearance on a Paris catwalk in a scanty faux fur thong. At last, a fitting riposte to the 1936 surrealist Object, the fur-lined teacup.

Despite the sensation her designs create, Westwood takes a very practical approach to design. As one of her assistants observes of Vivienne and partner Andreas Kronthaler’s collaboration, ‘They work with their hands, they work on the body, they have a rapport with the body’. Westwood has been making her own clothes from an early age, and her working class background probably goes some way to explaining the campaign of guerrilla warfare she has been waging against the establishment. Far from hiding torn edges and safety pins, Westwood features them as symbols of insubordination. She wants her clothes to ‘tell a story’, one spiked with mischief and defiance.

But there is an even more personal impetus underlying both Westwood’s designs and her activism. When she was nine, Westwood was transfixed and horrified by a painting of the Crucifixion. It was a seminal moment. Since then, it has become her mission, ‘To stop people doing terrible things to each other’. Wanting to change the world, she joined a Greenpeace expedition to the Arctic Circle. The environmental devastation she witnessed there left her traumatised. Over time, her mission has become ever more focussed, homing in on the financial establishment as, ‘The rotten financial system,’ and, ‘A hydra that is destroying us’.

Even so, this Designer of the Year (twice) who performs cartwheels on the catwalk has been struggling with a conundrum common to many underground artists. As the work gains recognition, it is at the same time being subsumed into the very establishment it is agitating against.

If fashion or popular culture interest you in any way this documentary is a must-see, and for the rest of us it’s a fascinating insight into a fiercely original spirit.

 

Donbass

Rated: MDonbass

Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa

Script by: Sergei Loznitsa

Produced by: Heino Deckert

Starring: Tamara Yatsenko, Liudmila Smorodina, Olesya Zhurakovskaya, Boris Kamorzin, Sergei Russkin, Petro Panchuk, Irina Plesnyaeva, Zhanna Lubgane, Vadim Dobuvsky, Alexander Zamurayev, Gerogy Deliev, Valeriu, Andriuta, Konstantin Itunin, Valery Antoniuk, Nina Antonova, Natalia Buzko, Sergei Kolesov, Svetlana Kolesova, Sergei Smeyan.

Donbass, named because of the region in Eastern Ukraine where the film begins and ends, isn’t a typical war film.

This is a confusing and absurd film of moments during a war between the Ukraine regular army made up of volunteers and the separatist gangs supported by Russian troops.

The focus is on the ground amongst the people living their everyday lives in a world of chaos with chapters showing bombs dropped while laughing on the phone, waiting in the car in line at yet another check point.  And a raucous wedding filled with congratulatory soldiers with code-names like Lumber Jack and Coupon.

It’s a disturbing mix of footage shot in freezing weather and underground bunkers where civilians are forced to live without water, heat and a working toilet – like people from the ‘stone age’.

This is director and scriptwriter, Sergei Loznitsa’s fourth feature film.  He describes Donbass as a fiction based on true events, quoting Varlam Shalamov in his short story, PAIN: it’s a film that’s, ‘a distorted reflection in a curved mirror of the underground world’.

And it’s a cold world with a constant undercurrent of threat.

One chapter shows a German journalist who’s pulled from a vehicle at a check point for questioning – the soldiers happy to have found a ‘fascist’: even if you don’t think of yourself as a fascist, your grandfather certainly was.

Only for them to all get bombed anyway.

I wouldn’t say the film was overly violent, but the violence shown is disturbing because it all seems so senseless.

I spent a lot of the time watching the film in confusion, trying to figure out who was on what side.

The civilians shown to be just as confused, one scene showing a middle-aged woman talking to a volunteer captured and tied to a pole with, ‘Extermination Squad Volunteer’ taped to his chest, asking when the bus will arrive… and how she can’t walk as far as she used to…

Then to see the man inevitably get almost based to death isn’t really my style of entertainment.

I get the statement made here – the degradation of people living amongst the senselessness of war; but I found the viewing extremely dry, confusing and absurd.

Which was the point, I grant, but it was just so depressing l was left with a sense of incongruity and bitterness.

A Star Is Born

Rated: MA Star Is Born

Directed by: Bradley Cooper

Screenplay by: Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters

Based on the 1954 Screenplay by: Moss Bart and the 1976 Screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion and Frank Peirson

Based on a Story by: William Wellman and Robert Carson

Produced by: Bill Gerber, p. g. a., Jon Peters, Bradley Cooper, p. g. a., Todd Phillips, Lynette Howell Taylor, p. g. a.

Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Rafi Gavron, Anthony Ramos, Dave Cahppelle.

A Star Is Born is one of those country love stories because with real love comes the real tragedy of watching a star rise despite people telling her she’s ugly and the mega-star musician suffering addiction and tinnitus while losing the sense of who he is.

Add music, good music, and you’ve got more just a love story.

I didn’t go into the film expecting to like the music so much.  I’m a ‘No pop no style, I strictly roots’, kinda gal.

But all the singing was recorded live and most of the songs original and written for the film – no miming, just the real voice so you can feel it coming through the screen.

And with the opening scene of Jack (Bradley Cooper) singing “Black Eyes” with band, ‘Luckas Nelson & Promise of the Real’ I was hooked.

Sure, Jack was blitzed, but he could still sing a good tune.

Cut to Ally (Lady Gaga), a waitress, heeled boots under a toilet stall, pacing, breaking up with a ridiculous boyfriend – ‘fucking men!’ to her getting ready for a gig singing in a drag bar where you bring your own boobs – with pasted fine-line eyebrows, lying back on a bar, her voice slipping over the French as she sings “La Vie En Rose” (Louiguy and Edith Piaf) – there’s goosebumps when their eyes meet – they’re soul mates.

The music is used to compliment the story because it’s all about seeing these two together on screen: first time director Bradley Cooper with first time feature film actress Stefani, AKA Lady Gaga.

What a combination: Cooper as Jack with that soulful look off-setting the sometimes-awkward Lady Gaga as Ally, only to be used for added authenticity because we’re all a bit awkward sometimes. And yet, really, she’s not.  Ally just is.

It’s amazing how much I feel like I know this character now.  And how I’m relating to this superstar so well – she’s funny, genuine and wow, can she sing.

But it’s the two of them together that really makes the film.  I don’t think Ally would have been as believable without Cooper as Jack.  And Lady Gaga’s voice lifts the film above the usual country love song.

I was so thankful this wasn’t a musical or music video.

A Star Is Born is a well-balanced film with the authentic music matching the love story so when the music got poppy, the story got sad, to go full circle back to the earthy music again to compliment the end of the story.

Even when there could have been a cheesy moment between older brother Bobby (Sam Elliot) and younger brother Jack, all the feeling was captured in a look from Bobby while backing the car away – everything shown in that one look.

There’s drama here, and it’s a tear-jerker (damn it! I hate getting teary in the cinema), as we’re shown the life-behind-the-curtain of the talented songwriter finding her voice in the musician who sees her as clearly as she sees him.

First Man

Rated: MFirst Man

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Screenplay by: Josh Singer

Produced by: Wyck Godfrey, p.g.a., Marty Bowen, p.g.a., Isaac Klausner, Damien Chazelle

Based on the Book by: James R. Hansen

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Ciaran Hinds, Olivia Hamilton, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas, Ethan Embry, Brian D’Arcy James, Cory Michael Smith and Kris Swanberg.

Based on the biography written by James R. Hansen, ‘First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong’, First Man allows the spectacular phenomenon of man landing on the moon to speak for itself.

Oscillating – yes, it gets technical which is the main reason I enjoyed the film – between the drama of Armstrong’s family life and his courage to risk everything to go to the moon, this is a quiet film punctuated by nail-biting suspense.

It would have been easy to over-dramatise the achievement of America being the first to step foot on alien ground, instead, director Damien Chazelle (La La Land (2016), Whiplash (2013)) focuses more on the man: his sacrifice, strength and will to achieve what the American government so desperately wants to achieve before the Russians.

Ryan Gosling as Armstrong holds up the helmet well as the family man and as the brave, cautious and deliberate pilot navigating rockets, that are really bombs, set off while strapped inside what looks like a tin can.

The absurdity and risks are shown with lines like the technician buckling Dave Scott (Christopher Abbott) in for the test run of rocketing Gemini 8 through the atmosphere to see if it’s possible to dock one craft to another in space asking, ‘Anybody got a Swiss army knife handy?’

‘You’re kidding?!’ Dave says as the final adjustments are made.

First Man is about the years it took to accomplish the impossible, opening in 1961 with Neil beyond the atmosphere, testing the ability to cut through and be able to fall back to Earth – and the love of his wife Janet (Claire Foy), son (Gavin Warren / Luke Winters) and the devastating loss of his young daughter, Karen (Lucy Stafford).

This is a drama, the frailty of humanity given as much weight as the courage required to realise one of man’s greatest achievements.

When interviewed to join the Apollo team, Armstrong’s told by one interviewer that he’s sorry for the loss of his daughter.

To which he replies, ‘I’m sorry, is there a question?’

And he’s asked whether the loss has any effect on his wanting to join the Apollo mission.

‘It would be unreasonable to assume it wouldn’t have an effect.’

This statement sums up the movie for me – a quietly suspenseful and direct depiction of what it took and the motivation to drive someone to take such risks without unnecessary fanfare.

Night School

Rated: MNight School

Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee

Written by: Kevin Hart, Harry Ratchford, Joey Wells, Matt Kellard, Nicholas Stoller, John Hamburg

Produced by: Will Packer, Kevin Hart

Starring: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Taran Killam, Romany Malco.

I arrived at the preview of Night School with my tub of popcorn expecting a big, bold American-style comedy and it was that, but it was also something more.

The movie opens with Teddy (Kevin Hart) sparring with his sister over his decision to quit high school rather than face yet another test. Teddy argues that the test is not relevant to African American students; he can’t see the point of, ‘calculating the average number of Manatees in California’.

At the time, leaving school did not seem like such a bad idea. A few years later and Teddy is selling barbeques so successfully that his boss offers to hand over the business to him when he retires. Teddy seems to have it all: a drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend, a luxury sports car and a secure, well-paid future. That is, until he accidentally blows up Barbeque City.

Despite an unparalleled talent for hustling, Teddy is looking at a long term future on the side of a highway wearing a chicken suit unless he returns to school. Unluckily for Teddy, the boy he publicly humiliated when they were students (Taran Killam) now runs the school, striding down the corridors with a baseball bat and a horrible case of ‘black-talking’, and the woman teaching the night class (Tiffany Haddish) turns out to be the complete stranger who dissed him out at the traffic lights earlier on. Even the text book is terrifyingly huge, and definitely not the mere ‘leaflet’ Teddy was hoping for.

If this isn’t enough, he discovers that he has a cocktail of learning difficulties including: dyslexia, dyscalculia and a processing disorder. Not that it wins Teddy any sympathy with his smart and fiercely dedicated teacher. She quips that he is ‘clinically dumb’ before launching a unique hands on special-ed program designed to unencumber his ‘neural pathways’.

All of this might turn others to a life of crime (has turned one class member), but Teddy still has his beautiful fiancé, Lisa, to live up to. Believing that she is out of his league, he has convinced her that he’s working for his best friend as an investment adviser, but he must first qualify for his GED if he is to make this true.

Usually, when I see a movie for the first time I experience the score in a direct, visceral way, and it takes deliberate effort to tune in to the sound more consciously. In this instance I did manage to wrench myself out of the action and I was impressed not only by the cleverness of the soundtrack, but the unpredictable ways it enhanced the comedy.

It wasn’t until final scenes that I realised that the Night School had been made with a genuine sense of conviction, and with much stealth, guile and cunning I had been drawn into a view of education as more important than any obstacle, however enormous. Yet the achievement of this movie is that there was not the slightest feeling of being lectured to. Well, maybe a tiny bit in the final joke littered speech. By then the entire cast has experienced their own brand of growth. Even the principal has shed his ‘black talking’ sneer.

American Animals

Rated: MA15+American Animals

Directed and Written by: Bart Layton

Produced by: Katherine Butler, Mary Jane Skalski, Derrine Schlesinger, Dimitri Doganis

Director of Photography: Ole Bratt Birkeland

Editor: Nick Fenton

Starring: Evan Peters (Warren Lipka), Barry Keoghan (Spencer Reinhard), Jared Abrahamson (Eric Borsuk), Blake Jenner (Chas Allen II) and Ann Dowd (Betty Jean Gooch).

American Animals is a different kind of heist film that plays out in the style of a documentary shown like a suspense thriller.

The film’s based on the true story of four college students who decide to rob the Special Collections Library of Spencer’s College housing incredibly rare books including Audubon’s Birds of America valued at $10 million dollars.  In broad daylight.

Writer and award-winning director, Bart Layton (winning the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut for The Imposter) utilises the techniques of documentary by basing his script on interviews with the four robbers, Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, Eric Borsuk and Charles “Chas” Allen II and their families and victim of the heist, librarian, Betty Jean Gooch.

He includes the interviews in the film, the facts and post-crime analysis, with the guys recounting each of their unique perspective alongside the dramatization of actors playing the parts, sometimes repeating immediately what was said by the real-life person.  Which could have been repetitious but instead added this interesting layer to the film that Layton uses to create something more than just a documentary or just another heist movie.

It was like putting distance between who the guys are now compared to the people who planned and ultimately committed the crime.

The fantasy of successfully pulling off a heist shown by actors added to the vision of how they saw themselves to cut to the reality of what they had actually done and how it felt, crossing a line that can never be uncrossed.

‘This is the History of Demolition’ says a poster on the wall of Spencer Reinhard.  It stuck with me as the fantasy of pulling off a heist in the middle of the day, to steal rare books worth millions, starts to get way too real.  It’s like watching Spencer’s life fall apart.

There’s a scene when Warren and Spencer are talking about the planning in the early days, where Spencer is waiting for something to happen in his life to give it meaning, ‘Like what?’ Warren asks.

‘Exactly. Like what.’

It seems easy fun, the planning, travelling to New York to meet a Fence, the drawing of blue prints, the stake-outs where Eric, an accountant major, who plans to join the FBI, takes to the planning of the heist like a fish in water.

As Warren says, it’s a, Take the blue or red pill, moment.

It’s the adventure they’ve all been looking for.

And it makes for a great story like an Ocean’s film but with young guys in college, sussing it out like idiots looking up how to rob a bank on Google.

And there’s thought into the way the shots are taken, the opening up-side-down, the cutting from character to real person; a face in front of a computer seen behind the text on screen.

Yet more than the clever cutting of imagery, the matching of each actor to each part was uncanny, and a successful technique because the splicing between the real and the drama works on a completely different level.  Which also says something for the actors such as the familiar faces of Evan Peters (I’m fast becoming a fan and may have a crush) and Barry Keoghan, another one to watch and last seen in his disturbing performance in, The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

The film is a solid package that has a cool soundtrack (The Doors, ‘Peacefrog’ for example), is visually creative and has a fascinating story, with suspense, humour, intrigue, adventure while also showing the toll taken when crossing the line from fantasy to stark reality.

Subscribe to GoMovieReviews
Enter your email address for notification of new reviews - it's free!

 

Subscribe!