American Animals is an unbelievably good film, it has everything you'd want from a heist movie and more. It's funny, well written, extremely intense in parts and the cast is fantastic. The film is about the real life case of when a group of teenagers brazenly attempted to steal priceless works of art and literature from Transylvania university.
The film is put together in a sort of mockumentary style, and i say sort of because while the film is interspersed with sections with brief statements from the actual perpetrators involved in the case they are few and far between and are woven into the movie incredibly well so it adds rather than detracts from the experience. At first i thought it might be jarring but it isn't, everything about this movie works.
All the performances are good in this film but the two standouts are Barry Keoghan and Evan Peters. Peters in particular is phenomenal in this. I was drawn into their friendship and even when their plans spiraled out of control and some very questionable choices were made i couldn't help but still like them.
The thing i think the film excels at is showing exactly how these middle class kids ever get involved in trying to do something so absolutely insane. Without getting too technical and needlessly throwing out psychological theory at you, here's what the film showed that was going on for the crime to occur.
It shows the effects of group think and group pressure, It shows psychologically that all the young men involved had strong personal fables of invulnerability and it showed that they were desensitized to the act of robbery through having watched and wanting to mimic heist movies. I really like that its that clear in the film not just what happened, but what was going on psychologically for the boys involved in the crime and the resulting strain it put on them trying to cover it up.
I cannot recommend this movie enough,
it is great.
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