Review of Animal Kingdom (2010) by Nesbitt10 — 13 Jun 2013

This is maybe the nearest we're going to get to an Australian "GoodFellas" (1990). Australian filmmaker David Michôd making his feature directorial debut from his own script finds moments of muted horror in these lives gone astray, starting right out of the gate. An excellent Aussie crime drama thoroughly deserving of its across-the-board rave reviews.

Seventeen year-old Joshua Cody (James Frecheville) is suddenly on his own after his mother dies from an overdose and has no place to stay. He is taken in by his grandmother Smurf (Jacki Weaver). She is the matriarch of a notorious Melbourne crime family, further consisting of her four sons Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn) Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), Darren (Luke Ford), and Baz (Joel Edgerton), all of whom are armed criminals. Melbourne's Armed Robbery Squad is after specifically Pope, who is hiding out. When Baz is murdered, the family's voice of reason is gone, and the unstable Pope takes the lead in the family's hierarchy. Nathan Leckie (Guy Pearce) is a police detective who has found out who Joshua is and what he knows. He tries to convince the teenager to help him put the family behind bars. Joshua isn't certain about his loyalties to these outlaws, who he hardly knows, which are also his blood. Michôd's film combines the shock of sudden plot turns with a slow burn, leading to the inevitable horror that plays up the emotional cost of violence.

Utterly thrilling, "Animal Kingdom" exudes stunning depth and complexity. Packed with characters so chillingly, casually evil that it will linger with you for days. Fantastic performances all around. "Animal Kingdom" was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature.