American Animals

homerun_homer

I'm amazed there is not a thread on this already. I went to see it last night and it was brilliant. It's from the Bart Layton, the director of The Imposter. It also uses a similar way of blending documentary with movie interpretations of what happened very well, and funny at times, and done in a completely different way to the Imposter.

Barry Keoghan is excellent in it, very natural, especially with the American accent. Evan Peters is also a standout, and both seem perfectly matched to their real life counterparts.

If you haven't seen or heard of it, I highly recommend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAhruSwum1c

yourdeadwright

I seen this myself and thought it was good,ye it could have been better in place but one of my favourite movies this year for sure, Well worth a watch

CatFromHue

Haven't seen it yet but it does seem to be getting good reviews from everyone

Pentecost

I looked up this thread just to recommend this film. Very good, and I wasn't sure I would like it beforehand. The concept of cutting to the real people was something I had reservations about but it worked well. The casting was spot on, and Barry Keoghan was excellent,

pixelburp

It was a deft amalgam of the documentary and dramatic recreation, the two even occasionally overlapping as the real individuals shared scenes with their fictionalised counterparts. Importantly, it made the crucial step in not editorialising the narrative too much: rather than inserting its own theory or bias as to why the students attempted such a ludicrous heist, instead the film allowed the audience make their own judgements based on the (sometimes conflicting) words of the ex-students themselves, married with the slick, characterful recreations. All the performances were top notch, threading the needle between teenage obnoxiousness and a sympathetic portrayal of young men emotionally adrift. The balancing act was equally adept between the genuine laughs mined from the farce of this amateur heist, and the brutal, distressing reality of the robbery itself.

johnny_ultimate

Found it a touch frustrating and underwhelming myself. The story itself is without question compellingly moronic, and some of the staging is impressive - the main heist itself is shown as the twitchy, nervous cluster**** it needs to be. It captures the grim consequences of the incident in no uncertain terms, aided by the talking heads. Solid work from the actors - Keoghan really is one of Ireland's MVPs at the moment.

At the same time, there was a sterility to it all that kept me at a remove - partially intended by the filmmakers, true, but also partially because it all came across as a bit gimmicky. Especially in the first half of the film I didn't think the docu-drama approach added much to it (improves somewhat in the back half) and while the formal experimentation is to be admired, I was never entirely convinced it suited the story being told. The 'unreliable narrator' aspect was its weakest element - it was deployed haphazardly and not explored consistently throughout the film (almost as if there were a few 'this bits unreliable!' setpieces).

Far from a bad film, and it's slick as hell if nothing else. I guess I just never felt like it fully justified its various bits of trickery - as if they were ideas applied to a story, rather than ones inspired and motivated by the story.