Animal Kingdom
2010 Directed by David Michôd
Synopsis
A crime story.
Following the death of his mother, J finds himself living with his estranged family, under the watchful eye of his doting grandmother, Smurf (JACKI WEAVER), mother to the Cody boys. J quickly comes to believe that he is a player in this world. But , as he soon discovers, this world is far larger and more menacing than he could ever imagine. J finds himself at the center of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down.
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Part of Dastardly Difficult December: film nr.33
I have just watched one of my favourite crime films ever. And that's kind of a big deal as it is a genre I'm not particularly fond of.
This film has an almost meditative pace, with characters that feel genuine and a plot that is straightforward in content, but refreshingly contemplative in its narrative. The atmosphere is very tense, but always in the background.
And I guess that's what appealed to me most. This film isn't 'in your face' with anything. More often than not films about crime families are explicitly violent. This just isn't. There is violence, but it's unpredictable, scarce and intense without being graphic. This adds to the film's brooding…
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Down here in Oz, we have a solid résumé of crime flicks on offer, and Animal Kingdom sits on the top shelf with the best if them. David Michod's startling debut garnered plenty of attention including an Oscar nomination for Jackie Weaver's serpentine Matriarch Janine 'Smurf' Cody.
Michod astutely chooses to employ a first-time actor to the lead role which anchors the film in a harsh reality whilst the family of criminals circle like sharks around him. A smouldering tension pervades the film with effective montages, handsome cinematography and a subtle moody score to heighten the narrative. All the cast shine and have their individual moment in the sun in this highly effective and magnetic thriller. Do yourself a favour and it to your queue. -
This movie has been sat on my shelf for an age now and only with the help of my twitter chums did I watch this tonight, and now I feel like an absolute dumbass for leaving it this long. What a corker!
The tension oozes from this picture with such menace I found my heart rate was unusually high and this is in no doubt due to the excellent storytelling and the performances were top drawer from all, special mention has to go to Jacki Weaver as the family matriarch, all smiles and kindness on the outside, while inside holds a crime lord with murderous intent when it comes to the protection and well being of her boys. One of… -
Why I put this one off for so long is beyond me. Same with writing a review for it. Maybe I needed to wait until I was mentally prepared, on both accounts. It's not like it hasn't garnered extremely high praise from many of the most esteemed Letterboxd'ers [Dirk and Adam, most notably]. It's not like Jackie Weaver wasn't nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for it, which she lost to The Fighter's Melissa Leo. And it's not like I don't have a strange affinity for all things Australian. So why did it take me so long? Go figure.
David Michod's feature-length debut is a crime story of epic proportions, but unlike anything I've ever seen before,… -
When it seemed that the gangster genre had nowhere else to go we get A Prophet and now this stunning film from Australia. I had been impressed by the short films of David Michôd but nothing prepared me for how complete his feature debut would be. It is hard to pick out areas where it excels because it never really puts a foot wrong. The pacing is judged to perfection, it is slow by modern standards but every scene drips with tension that the film flies by. The cinematography is beautiful, taking cues from '80s era Mann (cool blue nights, warm orange summers and lingering tracking shots) but it never once feels like an homage and it never tries to…
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It says it's a crime story, but the only crime story here is that they don't do a segment on how awesome it is to fuck chickens. Seriously. They cover pretty much everything else, but leave out the chickens.
What. The. Hell.
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Three years ago, I got a copyright infringement notice from my ISP for downloading Animal Kingdom -- a movie I knew absolutely nothing about apart from it having a great score on RT. Being my first experience with a DMCA scare, I guess it put me off and left me with no desire to further pursue this film at the time. I ended up just deleting the file as I had no idea of what to do otherwise.
Here I am 3 years later with a Netflix blu-ray account and a recollection of once wanting to see this film. Now, after having watched this, I'm exponentially more pissed off that I had allowed myself to get caught back then, ultimately…
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Really strong performances and interesting characters, the story has a great pace and it delivers some really strong shocking moments. The lead actor plays the role with such restraint and shyness and yet he really develops into the lion.
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It says it's a crime story, but the only crime story here is that they don't do a segment on how awesome it is to fuck chickens. Seriously. They cover pretty much everything else, but leave out the chickens.
What. The. Hell.
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I saw this about five months back but seeing as it is about to be given a UK release (25th February), I thought I’d put my thoughts out there to be slaughtered…
This seems to be a universally loved film, scooping up the World Cinema Jury Prize just over 12 months ago at Sundance and numerous critics waxing lyrical about it, yet it didn’t register with anywhere near the same impact for me.
In most cases I enjoy films that take their time to establish momentum and place care in letting you attach yourself to the characters you are investing your time in. This is what I was expecting here, so I wasn’t surprised at the pace at which the…
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Some fantastic performances push the film along but I was never really gripped by the story or fully convinced of the characters motivations.
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A fantastic Aussie crime film that actually could have had stronger legs as a TV series. The characters are fleshed out in short time with excellent performances all around, especially from Jackie Weaver. The pacing however is really what sells it as films of this kind are often slow burns.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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#36
Great movie! A few twists here and there. Some wooden acting by the lead but solid depth from the supporting cast.
Gripping stuff.
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"It's a crazy fucking world."- Andrew 'Pope' Cody (Ben Mendelsohn)
When teaching a how to class on how to make a slowly paced yet still appealing crime/thriller, or quite honestly, a slowly paced film of any kind, this is the only needed material.
The best way to describe this is as a first-rate fusion of Goodfellas- both of them are crime films with heavy emphasis on 'family'- and both revolve around families of criminals that are falling out of power- and Drive- the two of them share a deliberate pacing which is occasionally turned upside down by sudden bursts of vicious violence. It doesn't quite reach the immeasurably high bar set by those two films, but it still leaves its…