While the new kidnapping crime thriller from star/co-writer/director Ben Affleck may have the tagline “Power Can’t Protect You,” the backbone of the film feels more in line with the above “point at the screen because they said the name of the movie in the movie” quote served up by the powerful presence that is Gillian Anderson (Sex Education, The Crown) portraying the calm, cool, and collected fixer Dayle Burton. Because in a film about a political election with everything on the line, a kidnapping of a young boy, and the choices people make when tragedy can turn into opportunities, the one thing that CAN protect you in these scenarios is a good spin.
Co-written by Connor O. McIntyre and Captain Phillips scribe Billy Ray, the film centers on idealistic, independent candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, Mark Kimball (Affleck), his family headed by wife Abigail (Wake Up Dead Man’s Kerry Washington), and his campaign manager Sam (Beef star Steven Yeun). The trio are in the final days of Mark’s run for political office with a veritable house of cards propping up a tightly contested race, a fraying marriage, and the mounting lies just under the surface.
Just as everything is coming down to the wire, Mark receives a call revealing his worst nightmare: his son has been taken and he has only hours to pay their ransom demands. With much of their personal savings compromised or spent on Mark’s campaign, Mark and Abigail resort to extreme measures, revealing dark secrets they never intended to bring to light.
No stranger to political theater or child endangerment plot machinations, Affleck combines elements of his early directing filmography (Gone Baby Gone, Argo) to generate a new twist on an old fascination; this time focusing on another moral quandary: What do people really care about, even when horrible outcomes are on the table? Does the truth matter when the story makes everything work?
Picture Credit: Netflix
Reminiscent of the spirit of Kurosawa’s High and Low and Spike Lee’s modern NYC adaptation Highest 2 Lowest, Affleck cares about what lengths powerful people will go to protect what they’ve built, regardless of how they built it. While these many themes and moral ambiguities can be intriguing to engage with at times, much like the criticisms of Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, the blend and execution of them may feel too familiar, too convenient, and too hollow to rise above the genre’s past entries—and at least Lee had a brazen, punctuated Denzel performance to rely on.
Animals feels like Director Affleck at his most tidy. A nameless, faceless kidnapper with a mildly explained axe to grind and a limited personal entanglement with Affleck’s Mark can only derive so much emotional energy and gives the audience nothing to chew on when a showdown occurs; marital spats and relationship deception come together in a clean, decisive manner; and its closing summations don’t make us think twice about what we knew about these people and what they wanted all along. The tease of who could have orchestrated the kidnapping in the first place, how Gillian Anderson’s Dayle interacts with Steven Yeun’s Sam and their past together, and the lack of trust surrounding certain characters seem to get wrapped quite easily or never get leaned into enough to create plausible suspicion.
With all that said, Animals is in capable enough hands, from script to screen, to put a competent thriller out to the world. While it lacks in comparison to the energy and aggression of Affleck’s prior directed crime thrillers, Affleck, Washington, and especially the poise, presence, and gravitas of a slick-haired, power-suited Gillian Anderson control the pace and hold court as a calm agent of mystery. The film should do just enough for the crime-loving Netflix audience who tune in for tea-spilled arguments and kidnap exchanges. But to borrow a term from Animals itself, if you thought you were getting Gone Baby Gone or The Town-level engagement, unfortunately you will get Option 3.
Watch Animals If You Like
- High and Low
- Highest 2 Lowest
- Gone Baby Gone
- Gone Girl
MVP of Animals
Gillian Anderson as Dayle Burton
Being a commanding presence on screen is what Gillian Anderson does best, especially as she got some distance from her breakout success in The X-Files. She’s played towering women of history in Margaret Thatcher and Eleanor Roosevelt to much success as well as kept up her agent of the law card punched with her run on The Fall.
What is fun about Anderson’s role as Dayle Burton in Animals is the almost robotic precision and early Sharon Stone-esque command over everyone in every room she’s in. Slick, powerful, and getting almost every meaningful line of dialogue in the film will make for a memorable entry in an already impressive career.
Verdict
Fans of Affleck’s prior crime thrillers may be underwhelmed by descriptors like competent and tidy, but with a cast this good and Affleck at the helm, you could find enough to like—even if it’s just Kerry Washington saying “I want you to (bleep) your wife” or Affleck talking A LOT in Spanish. Gillian Anderson is a standout in this one.