Desperate to pay their son’s ransom, a mayoral candidate and his wife resort to extreme measures, revealing dark secrets they never intended to bring to light.
Chuck says:
Derivative but effective, Ben Affleck’s “Animals” takes the premise from Akira Kurasowa’s 1963 thriller “High and Low” – which was remade by Spike Lee last year with “Highest 2 Lowest” – and puts a modern spin on it to look at the social and cultural divided in today’s America. Tautly constructed and intensely rendered, the movie manages to shake off its secondhand pedigree to becomes its own beast, a movie that takes no prisoners in its criticism of our immigration policy as well as the wide-ranging effects of the ever-widening financial disparities affecting us all.
It goes without saying that spouses have their secrets, things they keep from one they love for a variety of reasons. Mark Kimball (Affleck) is his quest to become mayor of Los Angeles has poured all of his family’s savings, as well as mortgaged their house, to fund his campaign. These are details he’s kept from his wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), who’s been harboring a secret of her own. Feeling abandoned because Mark has devoted all his time to his campaign, she’s wandered into the arms of another man.
These secrets come to the fore at the most inopportune of times. Out trick or treating with their housemaid, Cecilia’s (Adriana Paz) son and both wearing the same costume, the Kimball’s boy, Danny (Christopher Woodley) is kidnapped. Instructed not to call the police and advised by Mark’s campaign manager, Sam (Steven Yeun) to keep this under wraps until they can figure out how this effect the election, the distraught parents don’t know what to do. They’re relieved when Danny walks through the door unharmed. However, when the kidnapper calls with further instructions, they realize Hector (Jacob Estrada), Ceclia’s son, was taken by mistake.
The moral quandary the Kimball’s face is obvious, but how what they do will be seen through the lens of the electorate puts a clever spin on the premise. The script by Connor O. McIntyre, Billy Ray and Affleck is quite smart in the way it looks at the various aspects of the situation, effortlessly folding in our current immigration debate into the narrative. Portraying Cecilia and her husband Ramon (Luis Gerardo Mendez) as illegals complicates matters as their involvement in this incident cannot be revealed. This forces the Kimball’s to bear the brunt of the situation, adding dramatic weight in a logical and intriguing way.
Then there’s matter of the election, which Sam keeps front and center in Mark’s mind. There’ll be no keeping this under wraps and just how he reacts not only impacts the outcome of the election but their financial well-being as well. Prepared to take over $7 million in cash from fixer, Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson) will only put him further in the hole and while he was prepared to do so for his own son, will he do it for Ceclia’s?
It’s an engaging, thorny moral conundrum that, while outlandish, never feels exploitive. Affleck’s pacing wisely keeps us from thinking too much about the logic of it all, the story told at a fever pitch, one incident quickly leading to the next. Overall, the cast displays the proper level of intensity throughout, Anderson’s icy cool a wonderful contrast to everyone else’s collective sense of desperation.
The ultimate confrontation between Kimball and the abductor(s) borders on the incredulous. Whether you buy it or not depends on how many last-minute rescues you think can logically occur over the course of five minutes. Yet, the final denouement is quite clever as Kimball and Sam manage to put a clever spin on all that’s happened, leaving his constituents, and likely many viewers, happy.
“Animals,” unlike most thrillers, has a worthwhile agenda that it adheres to fervently and manages to forcefully drive home many of its points. Its flawed characters find themselves trapped not only within a flawed system but are brought low by their moral failings as well. Though they at times fall victim to their basest urges and desires makes them human. In rising above them, they’re able to display a modest bit of heroism.
3 1/2 Stars
