Movie Reaction: American Animals

Formula: Ocean's Eleven * The Imposter

True crime stories are having quite a moment right now. You can trace it back to Serial back in 2014*. The fact that this barely advertised podcast could take over pop culture for several weeks woke a lot of execs up to heavy interest in true crime stories across platforms. Shortly after that, Making a Murderer became a sensation despite being buried as a Christmas-time release. Then The Jinx became a critical darling that winter. Netflix has made a cottage industry out of releasing true crime documentary series like Evil Genius, The Staircase, and The Keepers over the last couple years. Even parodying it in shows like American Vandal has spun gold. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to marry the format with a more traditional movie structure. And who better to do is than the director of one of the best true crime documentaries of the decade?

*I am well-aware that true crime stories have always been popular. They are a TV staple and documentaries like Paradise Lost have been around for years. Serial is when I'd argue that true crime became a force.

I felt a little dumb watching American Animals. The true story this is based on happened when I was a senior in high school in my otherwise boring home state, and I don't remember hearing about it at all. I'm not sure how that happened, because this story is nuts. American Animals tells to story of a few bored college students who plan and "execute" a heist of the Transylvania University rare book collection.

Writer/director Bart Layton takes an interesting approach to telling the story. He casts Evan Peters and Barry Keoghan and eventually Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson to play the guys responsible for the heist, but he also gets the actual guys for interviews. The actors mostly recreate the actual people's recollections of the events, sometimes with those people narrating. That adds so much to the movie. Without the interview segments, this is a pretty good heist movie on its own. The characters are all interesting. It's pretty funny. The heist scenes are well-executed. I would've happily watched that movie.

However, the interviews make it something special. First of all, the constant reminder that this really happened makes everything work better. It's hard to question a character's motivation if the actual person is on screen saying it. Secondly, having that connection layers things. I was practically jumping out of my seat during the heist scenes because I was so nervous. That wouldn't happen if the characters felt less real. Lastly, and probably most importantly is that the interviews openly challenge the story. I always say that I don't like documentaries that aren't willing to question their own story. It should hold up under scrutiny. Bart Layton's last movie was the documentary The Imposter, which I recommend to everyone (don't look up anything about it if you can). One of the things I love about that story is how much doubt there is in it. He openly questions everyone and it makes that movie stronger for it. The same thing happens in American Animals. We know certain events did occur. The rest is just whatever version makes you feel the best.

I really, really liked this movie. It combines a lot of things I love: heist movies, documentaries, true-crime stories, comedy. It does a solid job mixing the funny moments with the more dramatic aspects. Perhaps it runs a little long. I can also see people complaining about oversimplifying character motivations or letting them "off the hook" morally. That's about all I've got though. So far, this is the highlight of a pretty underwhelming summer, at least among the films with budgets less than $100 million.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend