Ben Affleck has pushed through multiple Hollywood comebacks, at least one predicated on his facility behind the camera, directing Boston-based thrillers both artistically ambitious (Gone Baby Gone) and juicily crowd-pleasing (The Town). So now that his acting career seems particularly stable, as he works steadily and produces movies via the company he founded with longtime friend and collaborator Matt Damon, why does his directing career remain in what seems like post-Oscar doldrums? (Though he has never been nominated for a best director Oscar, his film Argo won best picture in 2013.) His new movie Animals appears perfectly situated within his wheelhouse: it’s a Los Angeles-based crime-and-politics thriller to match his earlier east coast work. The real surprise, however, is just how listless it can get.
Affleck himself plays Mark Kimball, a Angeleno running for mayor of his home town. His status as an independent non-party-affiliated candidate (and one who scarcely exhibits a trace of a platform in what little we see of his stump speeches and interviews) is only one element of his unlikely backstory, which also includes history as a teacher, a lawyer and a veteran of the first Gulf war. (Not sure the math on all that checks out, but let’s allow it as evidence of a fusion between Mark’s dedication to service and a rapacious ambition.) He’s leveraged his family’s wealth to take him through the home stretch of a close campaign, and tensions are medium-high with his wife, Abby, (Kerry Washington), who’s hiding some problems of her own. Things get considerably worse when, on Halloween, he receives a phone call: Kidnappers have taken his preteen son Denny (Christopher Woodley).
They’re demanding $7m that Mark doesn’t have to get him back safely. Mark and Abby both panic, but still find time to disagree about how, precisely, to handle this nightmare scenario. They’re especially divided on whether or not to heed the advice of Mark’s right-hand man Sam (Steven Yeun), who advocates employing a mysterious unnamed fixer (Gillian Anderson) – which itself will also cost the Kimballs plenty of money they will not get back unless Mark wins the election (which in turn involves him attending a crucial campaign event inconveniently scheduled on Halloween night).
All the ingredients – starry cast; ticking clock; complicated dilemmas centered on money, power, and ambition – are in place for a high-toned thriller, even if it is on Netflix with a few stray theatrical engagements. And then, once Affleck gets his ducks in a row … very little. For a movie that attempts to position Mark as both a product and a potential savior of Los Angeles, shockingly much of Animals takes place on Mark and Abby’s property, in a series of dull rich-folks rooms.
It’s the kind of environment usually fit for a stage production, and the actors certainly play to the cheap seats – especially Washington, who can overact a whisper if called upon to do so. But the screenplay by Affleck, Billy Ray, and Connor O McIntyre doesn’t lend much substance to any of the arguments. Some secrets are revealed, then turn out not to matter.
Mark, Abby and Sam talk in irritated circles. The kidnapper keeps calling, using voice modulation that makes him sound like Jigsaw. Only Anderson, resplendent in an all-white suit, has settled on whether this thriller is serious business or pulpy fun. (She chooses the latter, probably wisely though not particularly in sync with anyone else on screen.) One particular mid-movie plot turn so closely aligns Animals with another recent kidnapping thriller, Spike Lee’s Kurosawa remake Highest 2 Lowest, that those who have seen Lee’s movie may drop their jaws in disbelief.
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