Animal Kingdom (Saturday, August 14) (103)

Animal Kingdom tells the story of Josh who moves in with his grandmother and four uncles after his mother ODs on heroin. His extended family, who he does not know very well, are all drug pushers and gangsters. His grandmother, Janine, is a weird lady who seems to not be upset if her kids die from their life of violence and substances. Her oldest son, Pope, is wanted by the cops for any number of things and comes and goes when he things the coast is clear from them. Three other sons work as deputies to Janine and Pope in their world of crime.

Josh is taught how to survive and work inside this family. He has a girlfriend who seems oblivious to what is going on - and he likes it that way. He pretends that he has a normal life as a way to guard against the chaos he actually lives in. When a murder by his uncles goes wrong, he is interrogated by and becomes friends with detective Leckie, Guy Pierce, who wants to break his family's crime ring for good.

The film has a good-looking style and visual look, with lots of interesting, quiet set-ups, but the script by writer-director David Michod is mostly trite and uninspiring. The movie plays much to slow and way too long. By the end it seems like there are about four false endings, one more dull than the next.

Perhaps the worst part of the film is that it's hard to identify with any of the characters. Clearly we are supposed to align with Josh, but he's so quiet and internal with his thoughts and actions that it's hard to feel much sympathy for him. His uncles and grandmother are all bat-shit nuts so it becomes hard to understand why he sticks with them at all. By the end it seems like we're watching this family through a dirty window, rather than being inside the family, which I think would have been a much more effective view.

There isn't really that much crime in this crime movie. By the time we're up and running in the family house, most of the uncles are already done with their violent lives and looking to get out of the game. We see about three illegal acts, but we don't see all that much that would lead them to become such a serious target of the police. That we don't see how totally bad these guys are from the outset really hurts our conclusions about them.

This is just a very slow, boring and banal crime movie. There is nothing very special about it. The acting is good enough, but most of the characters are under-developed and weird (especially Pope and Janine) and that gets in the way of any real positive or negative feelings about them. At then end of the film I was mostly happy that it was over at all rather than happy or upset with the way the story ended (which felt rather random and unnecessary, by the way).

Stars: 1 of 4