Review of American Animals (2018) by Philip P — 10 Dec 2018

Poor people fight to create a life.

Privileged people create fights to feel like theyï¿ 1/2(TM)re living.

Imposter director Bart Layton weaves together documentary-style interviews with the highest quality re-enactments you've ever seen to the tunes of The Doors and Elvis Presley. The energy is infectious, the performances are quietly spectacular-Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Jared Abrahamson, and Blake Jenner are each well-drawn with their performances only further stressing certain inevitabilities-while Layton can't help but to emphasize his thesis that these guys ultimately did what they did in order to feel special so that the world would finally admit what they'd been fed their entire lives. It's especially fascinating in parts, a movie lover's wet dream in others, but comes slightly undone in the final stretches with the film massaging that thesis one too many times in order to find an answer to a question that is satisfied simply by having pieced together the events and multiple perspectives of this true story.