It has become cool, in recent years, for a film to break, contradict, or even make commentary on its own genre; the phrase “neo” prefixed to any common genre term has become the 21st-century way of marking these kinds of films. It's become a bit of a trope in its own way: last year's Logan was supposedly a rebellion against its slick and smarmy comic book contemporaries (though we could probably debate the extent to which that argument is true); likewise, Deadpool was a similar story, for different reasons—it was, in part, a self-aware parody of the caped crusader origin story. The neo-Western has become a popular, and, frankly, quite culturally valuable genre breakdown in the last 20 or so years. One indicator of this inward-looking genre film is a tendency to sort-of de-Hollywood-ize the subject matter. That isn't always the case in these neo-whatevers, but it's common to find the artifice of traditional Hollywood filmmaking—the classical grandeur of fabricated adventure and heroism—stripped away, or at least slightly chipped off, in service of more personal, effectual stories or even social commentary.
But if there's one genre that probably hasn't had enough de-Hollywood-ization, very well might be the American heist film. There are exceptions, Reservoir Dogs being the classic example where absolutely nothing about the heist goes right. But even Dogs takes the opportunity to bathe in the stylish debauchery familiar to Hollywood's not-entirely-unflattering view of roguish thieves and killers.
American Animals, I would argue, is a stab at the neo-heist film, albeit an imperfect one. Splicing together dramatization and real-life, documentary-style interviews, the film depicts the somewhat true (maybe? Who's to say?) story of four college students—Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan), Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson), and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner)—who attempted to pull off a $12 million rare book heist from their school library's special collection. Animals draws its strength and uniqueness from leaning into the stress, trauma, and chaotic amateurism that results from a bunch of kids trying to Ocean's Eleven their way to a life of “fulfillment” and “memorable experiences.” See, these guys weren't De Niro and Kilmer finessing their way through a slick bank heist, and subsequently, a street shootout. They were kids who had absolutely no idea what they were doing, and Animals makes that much abundantly clear to everyone… aside from the characters themselves, at least until it's too late for them to back out.
The film sets the story in motion with all the trappings of a classic heist film. We get snappy montages of the crew planning everything out, the blueprints, and the bulletin boards full of sticky notes and printouts. We even get the “gearing up” supercut. This crew’s outfit of choice? High-school-theatre-production-quality old man costumes. In terms of setup, the movie seems to be on its way to another solid but typical genre entry, if not for one factor: our two main “heroes.”
Spencer and Warren are clearly very different people, with very different memories of how everything went down, at least based on the real-life interviews that the film plays against one another. Keoghan and Peters play their respective roles with a strong grounding in adolescent restlessness and naive despair for the future. Warren is your classic teenage rebel who never quite grew out of it when he went off to college, and is only more dangerous and reckless for it. Spencer is the “normal” kid with dreams of that one thing that will make his life different—something to stand out from the hundreds of millions of American growing-up-and-becoming-an-accountant stories. What Spencer sees in Warren is a ticket to a life with more excitement, at least for the time being, so when Warren comes to him with the idea to rob the library of its old, rare books, Spencer's feigned disinterest and shortlived reluctance seems only believable to himself. As the two further humor this idea, they become more and more lost in the Hollywood fantasy of running off with all the money and living a life unimaginable.
Keoghan and Peters play their parts well, even if they're a tad underutilised, but where the film lacks is in the characters’ relationships with one another. We get a taste of it, in the first act of the film, but beyond that, their chemistry amounts to Warren saying, “let's do this,” and Spencer, concerned, replying, “I dunno, man,” until Warren wins him over every time. And the other two, Chas and Eric, hardly get any play at all. For the amount of time they're on screen, they're practically treated as inconsequential to the emotional roller coaster of the plot. If you're going to “put together a crew,” you have to make the viewer care about the crew as a unit, meaning all of the members together, rather than just the two leads. Even Solo kinda got that right.
Director Bart Layton shows some flair for stylistic editing and cinematography, employing somewhat of an Edgar Wright style for transitional shots and mood shifts. It's not the prettiest film this year, but it has a good blend of noir-ish light-dark balance and grungy, green-orange garage-band stuff that gives the film a nice visual edge over many heist movies.
By its end, the greatest claim American Animals can make is that it makes you feel what you would feel like if you actually tried to pull off a heist. It's nerve-wracking, traumatizing, and a showcase of incompetence in a worst-case scenario. I can't think of a heist movie recently that actually made me worried like this one did.
American Animals isn't a genre-shattering revolution, but it is a nice inversion of several tropes that have become more than tired, thanks to countless Mission: Impossible films (though I do enjoy them), and it serves a welcome respite from the slick and flashy depiction of dream-chasing crime in Hollywood. Perhaps Animals could be a catalyst for further study on the subject.