For whatever reason, choosing movies in my native language has been difficult. I assume this is partially due to the fact that the amount of movies readily available to me from the United States, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, etc. are infinitely greater than just about everywhere else combined. I read a couple of reviews of Animal Kingdom that looked pretty good and it had Guy Pearce in it, who I really liked in The Proposition, so I decided to give it a try.
The basic setup is that the mother of 17-year old Joshua (or “J” as he’s referred to most commonly in the film) has just overdosed on heroin. J’s mother was estranged from the rest of her family, but not having anyone else to turn to, J. gets in touch with his grandmother. J’s extended family agrees to take him in, but they’re anything but ordinary. They are, in fact, the Codys, a Melbourne crime family. At the point J moves in with them, the family’s business is crumbling and they’re exploring moving into legitimate ventures and leaving the life of crime. Baz, the criminal’s voice of reason, is murdered by the police though and this is when all hell breaks loose. Pope, the family’s most unstable member asserts his strong personality and things just go from bad to worse under his leadership. Before Pope took over, J was mostly a bystander or passive observer of the family’s activities, but Pope draws him into the action. As the police crack down on them even harder, Sgt. Leckie (Guy Pearce) believes he can rescue J from the life of crime and get him to testify against the family in court.
I won’t reveal any more details about it, but suffice it to say the film is full of unpredictable twists. One review I read described the film as one that “repulses you even as it draws you in” and I’d say that’s a pretty apt description. Some of the behavior of these guys is so reprehensible that it nearly defies description, but the story’s so compelling that you couldn’t possibly look away. This was the first full-length feature by writer/director David Michôd and if Animal Kingdom is any indication, we have much to look forward to with his future films.
TRAILER: Animal Kingdom
Cinema of the World 