Review of Animal Kingdom (2010) by Mark M — 11 Jan 2015

Loosely based on the Pettingill crime family in Melbourne, Australia, David Michôd's Animal Kingdom follows the events in the Cody crime family led by its matriarch, Smurf, after Joshua is brought into the family. The other core character outside of the family includes Pope's best friend and the family's partner-in-crime Barry 'Baz' Brown (Joel Edgerton). But what is a crime family, and what goes on within one, especially when it is led by a woman? By putting his own spin into a real life Australian crime family, Michôd crafts a different look into the pop cultural phenomenon around crime families which had peaked with Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather back in 1972.

Exceeding at how Animal Kingdom balances the act of exposition and visual storytelling beginning with Joshua's narration at the start of the movie, the movie is effectively set up when it comes to his estranged grandmother and uncles. Michôd delves into what the audience expects to see, such as Pope being the loose cannon of the family, Smurf's erotic hold over her sons, the violent acts that the Cody family are very much capable of, and how the Armed Robbery Squad are both ruthless and corrupt in their methods with taking out the Codys. It is this balancing act that Michôd, the director and writer of The Rover (2014), achieves through the script that has Animal Kingdom delivering on all fronts, where its well-directed and shot scenes move from one to the other with just enough intensity and information to keep the audience guessing where the movie is heading towards, but also not enough for it to be completely predictable, it takes us down the obvious road of answering whether Joshua will succumb to darkness that his mother tried to keep him away from but now finds himself thrust into.

While the characters in Animal Kingdom having varying levels of developments, they were all - for the most part - fleshed out just enough that the screen time wouldn't be tipped in their favor at the expense of their fellow characters, with each - including the minor ones - having a pivotal role to play with their motivations and personalities in Michôd's grand scheme of the movie which pits members of the Cody family against themselves and the divisive factions in the police force. As everyone in the cast handle their particular roles to near-perfection, Jacki Weaver delivers a standout performance as Smurf, which puts her above and beyond Animal Kingdom's expansive cast of most male actors, as her femininity proves to be a vastly different counterpart to the more masculine leaders of crime families in pop culture, and one that goes on to affect her form of control over the family.