Movie Review: American Animals

American Animals *** / *****

Directed by: Bart Layton.

Written by: Bart Layton.

Starring: Evan Peters (Warren Lipka), Barry Keoghan (Spencer Reinhard), Blake Jenner (Chas Allen), Jared Abrahamson (Eric Borsuk), Ann Dowd (Betty Jean Gooch), Udo Kier (Mr. Van Der Hoek).

 

American Animals tells the story of four, privileged white men in their 20s who for some reason decide to rob the rare book room at the Kentucky University they attend. It’s hard to like these men – who are really the personification of white privilege – but the movie clearly feels sympathy for them, going so far as to allow the real men whose story this is, to pop up repeatedly throughout the film to tell their own story. This, perhaps, answers my biggest question about this film which is why did writer/director Bart Layton want to tell this particular story. The answer may well be as simple as he wanted to make a movie like this, and these are the people who agreed to take part.

 

You may well remember Layton’s last film – the documentary The Imposter, in which a person who neither looked nor sounded like a missing American teenager, posed as him and was returned to the missing kids family, who accepted him as their missing family member up until the point when it was proven he wasn’t the right kid. That film was about how people believe what they want to believe – remember what they want to remember. He’s trying to do something similar in American Animals – adding in actors to re-enact most of what happened.

 

Of course, the people the men who planned and carried out the robbery don’t always agree of what happened, when or whose idea it all was. The best moments in the film show the scenes from a few different angles and vantage points, making for some fun, surreal moments – like one when one asks the other to pull over – as they are sitting on a staircase, because the other one says the conversation happened when they driving.

 

Basically, the film concentrates on two of the robbers – Warren (played by Evan Peters) and Spencer (played by Barry Keoghan) – who were the ringleaders, although in the real interviews, they disagree on who was the real leader. The dramatic scenes leave less room for interpretation – Peters performance is so powerful and persuasive, and Keoghan underplays Spencer, Warren comes across as the driving force. Both performances in the film are quite good. The other two robbers – played by Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson – are almost afterthoughts – they come in later in the planning process, and aren’t as well defined. Even worse is Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd) – the librarian in charge of the rare books room, who gets assaulted during the robbery. Layton doesn’t even let the real Gooch say anything until the very late stages in the film – and even then, it feels like its perfunctory – as if Layton knew he had to give her a voice lest he be criticized. She’s far less sympathetic to the robbers than the film is.

 

Even though the documentary aspects are probably the reason Layton was drawn to the story, and make for some of the more interesting moments, I also think it hurts the overall film. This could have, and probably should have, been a portrait of entitled brats, who do a stupid, violent thing – and even if they get caught, and go to jail for 7 years, still basically view it as something that happened to them, instead of something they did. The film could have pushed them harder than it did – but it basically takes their word unquestioned in terms of their motive, and their remorse.

 

Still, much of the film works, and it’s a rather audacious undertaking all told. I wish the story itself was better – the filmmaking more morally complex than than it is. But it is a wild and entertaining ride – even if I wish Layton was more questioning and probing than he ultimately is.