Review of American Animals (2018) by Jake C — 28 Sep 2018

As ever, the objet a-that obscure object (that kicks) of(f) desire, the meaningless but much lionized McGuffin, like that most American of animals, the Maltese Falcon-hardly matters here, and functions merely as a prop (fitting enough for a movie about movies) for the wider story, propping up the motivations, an excuse for their pursuit of self through the pursuit of it.

What makes AMERICAN ANIMALS so much better than the typical caper film, however, is that the heist itself functions in the same way as the Audubon books the kids on display here try to steal: The heist in effect plays second fiddle to the emotional drama and character arcs of these real people, an act both central to the story yet secondary to it at the same time.

Mixing real interviews with the remarkably reflective and articulate robbers with a compelling, well-written and well-shot dramatization of the events, a smart and self-aware genre film in the middle of a true crime documentary, director Layton juggles weighty themes of desire, self-worth, entitlement, fantasy, reality, media, violence, finding a striking balance between intelligence and humor and pathos and suspense.

In the end, the story here is not about a failed art robbery-neither the crime nor the art is the point-but about the motivation to transgress the invisible yet visceral line into wrongdoing, about what makes a failure a failure, about the line between the movie we sometimes live out in our head and the movie as it will eventually be filmed, the camera lingering on the violence of the assault and not keeping the effects offscreen.