Review #1,392: 'American Animals' (2018)

For decades the movies have taught us how the perfect heist goes down. You need a group of big personalities - all experts in a required field - an intricate plan, blueprints to map out the target, and the best gadgets a cheeky crook can buy. And of course, you need a handsome, charismatic leader, usually in the form of a Frank Sinatra, George Clooney or Sandra Bullock. Yes, a director such as Steven Soderbergh knows how to deliver a robbery with style, panache and a sense of fun, but the real world operates a little differently. American Animals, based on the theft of some rare and valuable books from the Transylvania University library by four kids who seemingly had no reason to dare such a feat, has great fun combining these two worlds. Director Bart Layton, who warmed up with 2012's true crime documentary The Imposter, relays this tale as both documentary and dramatic reconstruction, like Touching the Void but with more interaction between the actors and real-life subjects.

It sounds like "look at me" film-making, and it arguably is, but the film is stitched together so wonderfully that you can only sit back and admire the swagger of it all. The world Layton captures is incredibly dark indeed, one of degrading fraternity initiation ceremonies and endless supermarkets isles lined with colourful food packaging designed to create the illusion of choice. At least, that's how our two protagonists - anti-heroes may be the more suitable term - see it. Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) is a talented art student who feels like there must be more to life than this. His best friend Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), the joint-smoking loudmouth who is up for anything, feels very much the same, only he's way more angry about it. During a routine tour of the University library, Spencer learns that the lightly-guarded building houses the valuable The Birds of America by John James Aubudon, and only a nice old lady is there to watch over it. Stealing it should be easy, so Spencer confides in Warren, who quickly takes the lead in planning and executing the audacious heist.

There's a wonderful moment during American Animals where the foursome (Jared Abrahamson's Eric Borsuk and Blake Jenner's Chas Allen are also drafted later on) imagine their plan playing out. It's like ballet, with every cabinet opening with ease and every book gathered up falling gently into their bags. And of course, they're all wearing tuxedos. Earlier on we see Spencer and Warren doing research, only people don't write books about the perfect robberies they've carried out, so they're left with movies. The likes of Rififii, The Killing and Reservoir Dogs are their textbooks, so it's no surprise when they're caught off-guard when the reality of the situation smacks them in the face. The biggest obstacle is the nice old lady, Betty Jean Gooch (the always-great Ann Dowd), who they imagine will fall gracefully into an unconscious state after a zap from a taser. In reality, she kicked, screamed and wet herself, but the boys carried on with their plan anyway. With the real Spencer, Warren, Eric and Chas telling their own stories to camera, American Animals could have run the risk of softening or even glamorising this story, but Layton is careful to point out the consequences, and the rippling effect it had on everybody caught up in it. It's an astonishing piece of work that ramps up the tension to unbearable levels, crafted by a film-maker keen to breathe new life into a well-worn genre.


Directed by: Bart Layton
Starring: Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Jared Abrahamson, Blake Jenner, Ann Dowd, Udo Kier
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,038: 'X-Men: Apocalypse' (2016)

Following Matthew Vaughn's enjoyable franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011) and Bryan Singer's mind-bending follow-up Days of Future Past (2014), the latest entry into the ever-expanding world of the X-Men that began back in 2000 promised - according to writer Simon Kinberg - a scale and scope on such a level never before seen in a superhero movie. While the latest villain to face Professor X and his crew certainly ups the ante by offering the threat of global extinction, X-Men: Apocalypse suffers mainly because we have seen the likes of this before, after all Ultron threatened the same thing just last year in Marvel's Avengers sequel, and Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay have been doing this since the mid-1990's.

Apocalypse just doesn't offer the same sort of unique strangeness that assisted Days of Future Past in being the best entry since X2 in 2003, nor the impressive grip it kept on its large ensemble of super-beings and superstars in First Class. When it all boils down, Apocalypse is simply a tale of good vs. bad, introducing a hefty influx of new characters and old (with many of the latter re-cast with up-and-comers) in the process. The threat facing the wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his School for Gifted Youngsters this time is the first and most powerful mutant of them all, En Sabar Nuh aka Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). When we first meet him, Nuh is in Ancient Egypt where he is worshipped as a god. Fearing his power, his worshippers betray him, leaving him entombed within a collapsed pyramid and killing his Four Horsemen.

In 1983, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), the shape-shifting mutant, is in East Berlin rescuing teleporter Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from a human-run underground fight club and its winged champion Angel (Ben Hardy). Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is hiding out in Poland with his wife and child following his attempt to assassinate the President of the USA ten years previous. Charles is still running his school, which has added some interesting new recruits in fellow telepath Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Scott Summers aka Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). When Apocalypse re-awakens and decides that humanity has lost its way, he sets about recruiting his four new Horsemen, including Magneto, to help him destroy the world and rebuild it with him as its leader.

Anyone who loved Quicksilver's scene-stealing appearance in Days of Future Past will no doubt appreciate Evan Peters' extended role here, as he is again central to an impressive set-piece that is equally playful, inventive and exciting. For a movie with such a grim outlook at stake, it ironically works best when going about its business with a sense of humour. In the dramatic moments, its fails to offer any real impact, almost completely ignoring any religious undertones that would have made the film infinitely more interesting, and covering familiar ground in terms of Charles and Erik's somewhat rocky friendship. Although Isaac gives it his all, it is the young actors that are the standouts. Turner, Sheridan and Smit-McPhee manage to both channel the actors who came before them and making the characters their own. Hopefully then, the franchise is in safe hands moving forward (there are no signs of it stopping), but for now, Apocalypse is very much a case of same-old, same-old, and not much more than a relatively entertaining way to kill 2 and a half hours.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie