When Joshua 'J' Cody (James Frecheville) finds his mother dead from a drug overdose he contacts his grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver) for support. Janine is the matriarch for the crime family that J's mother tried to shield him from. The family is made up of Janine and her three sons Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn), Darren (Luke Ford) and Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), as well as a close family friend in Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton). They are all under stress given the trigger happy nature of the police force who are in a standoff against the underworld. J's entry into the family exposes him to the drug culture that the rest of the family is already accustomed to. When Barry is executed at point blank range by a police officer it sparks dangerous tensions between the Cody's and the police. A cop named Leckie (Guy Pearce) is quick to latch onto J to see if he will help them bring down the crime family because he knows the dangers that J and his girlfriend Nicky (Laura Wheelwright) are in.
Animal Kingdom, directed by David Michôd, carries a sense of nostalgia for Australian cinema. It reminds the audience of Australia's ability to cinematically tell powerful and intimate stories of lower class thugs, with a high degree of realism and verisimilitude. Yet its tendency to cover overly familiar elements of the crime genre is also suggestive of the ongoing problems with script development in this country. One of the first mistakes that the screenplay makes is killing off one of the film's most interesting and engaging characters at the start of the film. With the discussion about giving up the life of crime and getting into business there is a suggestion that this will be a revisionist type of crime film. This promise is never fulfilled with the death of this character and as such the film rarely transcends the genre. It delivers us once more into the lives of drug addicts, lowlifes, straight and crooked cops and exposes us to sporadic but senseless violence. There are few characters who can win the sympathy of the audience here. J has been deliberately characterised as a monotone teenager, who is incapable of thinking for himself and the way that he is pulled in different directions by the opposite sides of the law is one of the most interesting ideas in the script. Yet its been overly written to the point where it just isn't credible. In the very first scene in the film J insists on watching television while the paramedics attend to his mum in the same room. Frecheville has presumably been directed to play this role in a specific way, showing very little emotion, but it also makes his character almost entirely inaccessible and the film becomes distancing. Significantly, there are also a glaring number of plot holes in the narrative too, specifically the omission of any forensic investigation for the crimes, suggesting a lack of research during the script writing process.
For the various problems with the script, the direction of Michôd should still be commended for the grittiness and realism in which the film has been visualised. The locations of the film, like the interior of the Cody house, seem real and contribute significantly in one's belief of the family dynamics. The quite, intimate moments are contrasted with sporadic but graphic violence that is never glorified, unlike the television series Underbelly and its kinetic visual style. Even more impressive are the performances of the cast, who aside from Frecheville, are excellent. Joel Edgerton is missed throughout the film because he grounds his character with a believable amount of intelligence. Ben Mendelsohn is trippy as 'Pope' and his ability to combine a doped out image with his violent unpredictability makes him quite menacing. Jackie Weaver is also splendid as the slightly over-bearing grandmother, with a much nastier edge. Easily the most sympathetic character in the film is J's girlfriend and her parents are perfectly cast, even though they only have very minor roles. Why they would let their daughter's boyfriend, who has notorious relatives, stay in their house though is one of the many plot holes that has to be overlooked.
Animal Kingdom is a solid crime film but it lacks the emotional pull to make it particularly memorable. This is mostly due to the lack of a particularly engaging protagonist. There are plenty of strong performances throughout this film, particularly Mendelsohn, but it does make the audience question where the film is meant to be heading when we are forced to side with someone who seems to be almost entirely incapable of redeeming themselves here. With a tighter script and less plot holes this could have been a much more successful film given the number of good performances and also the high degree of realism that has been employed to tell this story.
Animal Kingdom, directed by David Michôd, carries a sense of nostalgia for Australian cinema. It reminds the audience of Australia's ability to cinematically tell powerful and intimate stories of lower class thugs, with a high degree of realism and verisimilitude. Yet its tendency to cover overly familiar elements of the crime genre is also suggestive of the ongoing problems with script development in this country. One of the first mistakes that the screenplay makes is killing off one of the film's most interesting and engaging characters at the start of the film. With the discussion about giving up the life of crime and getting into business there is a suggestion that this will be a revisionist type of crime film. This promise is never fulfilled with the death of this character and as such the film rarely transcends the genre. It delivers us once more into the lives of drug addicts, lowlifes, straight and crooked cops and exposes us to sporadic but senseless violence. There are few characters who can win the sympathy of the audience here. J has been deliberately characterised as a monotone teenager, who is incapable of thinking for himself and the way that he is pulled in different directions by the opposite sides of the law is one of the most interesting ideas in the script. Yet its been overly written to the point where it just isn't credible. In the very first scene in the film J insists on watching television while the paramedics attend to his mum in the same room. Frecheville has presumably been directed to play this role in a specific way, showing very little emotion, but it also makes his character almost entirely inaccessible and the film becomes distancing. Significantly, there are also a glaring number of plot holes in the narrative too, specifically the omission of any forensic investigation for the crimes, suggesting a lack of research during the script writing process.
For the various problems with the script, the direction of Michôd should still be commended for the grittiness and realism in which the film has been visualised. The locations of the film, like the interior of the Cody house, seem real and contribute significantly in one's belief of the family dynamics. The quite, intimate moments are contrasted with sporadic but graphic violence that is never glorified, unlike the television series Underbelly and its kinetic visual style. Even more impressive are the performances of the cast, who aside from Frecheville, are excellent. Joel Edgerton is missed throughout the film because he grounds his character with a believable amount of intelligence. Ben Mendelsohn is trippy as 'Pope' and his ability to combine a doped out image with his violent unpredictability makes him quite menacing. Jackie Weaver is also splendid as the slightly over-bearing grandmother, with a much nastier edge. Easily the most sympathetic character in the film is J's girlfriend and her parents are perfectly cast, even though they only have very minor roles. Why they would let their daughter's boyfriend, who has notorious relatives, stay in their house though is one of the many plot holes that has to be overlooked.
Animal Kingdom is a solid crime film but it lacks the emotional pull to make it particularly memorable. This is mostly due to the lack of a particularly engaging protagonist. There are plenty of strong performances throughout this film, particularly Mendelsohn, but it does make the audience question where the film is meant to be heading when we are forced to side with someone who seems to be almost entirely incapable of redeeming themselves here. With a tighter script and less plot holes this could have been a much more successful film given the number of good performances and also the high degree of realism that has been employed to tell this story.