American Animals

American Animals is a heist docudrama masterpiece that came out of nowhere! Centered around an event that actually happened in 2004 Kentucky, writer-director Bart Layton narrates the premise by marrying cinematic and documentary storytelling in a harmonical wedding. What's meant by that is, you'll see the real life people who were involved in said crime back in the day integrated fluently into this dramatic reenactment featuring actors who play these respective characters! This functions as a brilliant callback of decisions made, words spoken, regrets, memory and difference in accounts plus details for the real life people as they witness their younger selves aka the actors commit them. Again, brilliant!

We follow protagonist Spencer (Barry Keoghan), an aspiring artist who feels he's running a pretty mundane life and thinks he's meant for some greatness, or a tragedy that could convert him into a true artist. He has a close friend, and this is where all the trouble starts. Warren (Evan Peters) is a delinquent teenager. He has a similar want like Spencer, and arrives the Inciting Incident in the form of a library visit. Spencer discovers, via a book tour, a set of precious ancient first edition books. Stimulated by his pal, they both decide to take advantage of this and make some real banging cash!

You could expect every single preparation that you would typically expect from a heist plot in American Animals. The amateur level of setup, plan and action, ranging from watching heist movies, reading online articles on how to commit the perfect robbery, drawing library schematic, assigning code name ala Reservoir Dogs, donning cheap disguises, driving speed practice and recruiting additional members are extremely simple layouts that constantly engage you in every scene! Warren travelling all the way to Holland to secure a buyer is definitely bonkers, but the conflicting information discourse at the end regarding said activity does send chills down our spine a little.

Class test on the same day as heist, aborting the first heist out of panic, rescheduling heist after convincing everyone and the entire chaos sequence of stealing the treasure with umpteenth mistakes lining up like dominoes will flood your whole nerve stream with anxiety! American Animals has a funny undertone to it throughout from the beginning, but things take an incredibly awry and dark turn post the actual heist, as it should. If this isn't enough, Spencer submitting his real phone number to an actual valuator seals the fate for his crew. The soundtrack portion of regret and reminiscence between this and the eventual jail time for these characters most definitely could have been executed differently or eradicated altogether as it's a speed breaker.

All the conversations, dialogues and performances are goddamn intriguing! Every character has their defined motivation that leads to their actions. The technical prowess on display here, be it film editing, score, soundtrack choices, sound mixing, transitions etc. can be described using the same adjective - razor-sharp!