AMERICAN ANIMALS review by Patrick Hendrickson – Evan Peters leads this crazy crime drama

AMERICAN ANIMALS review by Patrick Hendrickson – Evan Peters leads this crazy crime drama

Evan Peters stars in this cinematic reenactment of an actual art heist committed by a group of four college students. The reenactment is inter-cut with interviews from the real world participants of this heist, and those interviews offer interesting insights into what exactly motivated them to commit this robbery, which in turn helps clarify the motivation of their reenactment counterparts. The heist that these four individuals put together is for expensive books and works of art from their university’s collection. The four participants are Warren Lipka (portrayed by Peters), Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan), Chas Allen (Blake Jenner), and Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson).

Peters does a great job as Warren Lipka who leads the charge in planning and executing the heist. In terms of acting, he steals the show without a doubt, but the rest of the cast do good jobs in their own right. Spencer initially comes up the plan. Once the two hit a snag, they approach Eric who points out the need for a fourth member… which ends up being Chas. The case itself becomes pretty fascinating once the four crew members get together and once their plan comes closer and closer to being put into action. However, the early portions of the film are a bit of a drag. Spencer is overshadowed heavily by Warren, whose presence is not balanced out until the arrival of Chas and Eric. This is a testament to Peters’ performance, but Keoghan’s portrayal is unfortunate collateral damage.

One of the more bizarre aspects is a fixation on how this robbery represents an escape from the droll lives each of these four young men are facing. This theme of escapism and longing for greatness is played up pretty heavily from the start, but it is at odds with the more grounded reality being presented by the interviews with the real-life participants. This creates a somewhat disjointed tone for most of the film. The production would have been a fairly engrossing crime thriller had these more romanticized themes not been present. As it stands, the film comes off as slightly pretentious due to this mismatch of tone. However, the real-life participants themselves support these over-dramatic themes in their interviews by speaking in a very idealistic way about their reasons for committing this crime.

AMERICAN ANIMALS starts off weak but very quickly ramps up to an engaging story about four desperate individuals who put together a convoluted and unrealistic scheme. Peters steals the show by far, but every member of the cast helps contribute to this recreation. Despite the confused tone, and slow start, the production still earns a solid 4/5.

AMERICAN ANIMALS opens in limited release on June 8, 2018

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