Review of Animal Kingdom (2010) by Matt H — 12 Mar 2011

I pretty much saw this film for two reasons: my wife is Australian, and Quentin Tarantino told me to. It was a solid film, but I don't think quite lived up to all of its accolades.

Being that the movie is advertised as being full of twists, I thought it was a bit weird that I was able to see *almost* all of the twists coming from about a mile away. The story followed a very natural progression and only twice deviated from it enough to give me a minor surprise. I don't necessarily go into watching a film for the sake of being shocked, but I found it strange that it was advertised in such a way.

The acting was really strong; both Jackie Weaver and Guy Pearce turn in nomination worthy performances, and the rest of the cast are all at least solid. I don't think the dialogue was very good, though, and it seemed especially clunky early on. Having spent a grand total of about a year in Australia over the last few, I can tell you that Australians don't really talk the way this movie would have to believe. It wasn't the lingo per se; that was spot on, it was more the phrasing. I spent a lot of the first half of movie thinking "Nobody talks like that.".

It was an entertaining enough film, and had some particular scenes that were interesting, but a lot of it felt like it was being overly dark and gritty just for the sake of it. It wasn't necessarily exaggerated violence, but there is a particular moment in the latter half that I thought was a bit over the top. There's only so much grit I can take before it stops being fun. Still a worthwhile film, but not Oscar worthy.